1. Recognize the Physical Symptoms of PTSD
In addition to its crippling emotional and cognitive effects, PTSD has several physical symptoms that are effectively treated with modern psychotherapies. These effects include difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep, startle response when hearing loud noises, agitated disposition, tremors, cold sweats, avoidance behaviors, increased heart rate and difficulty breathing. Many of these conditions are managed well by prescription medication, but psychotherapy is the best way to ensure the root cause is dealt with so that symptoms do not return.
2. Complete Stress Inoculation Training
An important first step in the treatment of the physical effects associated with PTSD is Stress Inoculation Training (SIT), which is broken down into education, skill-building and application phases. Anxiety reduction is incorporated into the education stage as a means to help victims cope with stress by using progressive muscle relaxation techniques.
Victims are taught that fear is a learned response triggered by something potentially harmful. Therapists help those dealing with PTSD to understand the difference between actual dangers and perceived threats that do not exist. Once a person recognizes the cues that activate their fear or anxiety, they can employ relaxation methods that ward off negative reactions.
Thought-stopping exercises, mental rehearsal and role-playing reinforce symptom reduction in the skill-building phase. Finally, in the application phase, clients are encouraged to use the tools they have acquired to control symptoms in real-world scenarios.
3. Utilize Multiple-Channel Exposure Therapy
Essentially, MCET is a complex form of Systematic Desensitization. Clients who have learned how to control their fearful symptoms are then gradually exposed to the things they fear. Initial exposure involves recreating sensations that bring about symptoms of panic or anxiety, such as holding your breath, running, tensing your muscles and crouching in defensive positions. Victims are taught that these sensations do not mean one is actually in physical danger. Instead, the victim has merely associated the sensations with danger in their mind.
Next, visual imagery is used to place the person suffering with PTSD back in the situation they fear. This is a slow process wherein the person closes his eyes and imagines seeing, for example, a burning building from a distance. If the panic can be controlled with relaxation techniques, the client visualizes the building up close. Once this step is mastered, the client visualizes the initial trauma, confronts the fears and conquers them in his mind.
Finally, the patient is exposed to the thing he fears in real life. Thus, the victim might watch an actual fire from a distance. Over time, the fear would be confronted with greater intensity until, at last, the patient is desensitized to the object or situation that triggers the panic, thereby relieving the symptoms.
4. Participate in Art Therapy
Art is a powerful medium, not only for the expression of creativity, but also for its healing properties. In the 1930s, clinicians began noticing a link between their clients' disorders and the artwork they created. Around the same time, art educators discovered that spontaneous works of art held profound emotional and symbolic meanings. Shortly thereafter, art therapy emerged as a viable form of treatment for mental disorders.
In some cases, persons suffering with PTSD are so emotionally disturbed that they cannot articulate how they feel or what they need to say. Art therapy creates a safe place in which they can express their turmoil and voice their fears without words by using clay, sand, paint and other methods. Advancements in neuroscience indicate that traumatic experiences are encoded in the brain via nonverbal mental pathways in the form of animate images. These images appear not only when victims dream, but also when they release mental energy by producing artwork.
