Remembering Trauma to Beat Anxiety
Ivanhoe NewswireBy Lucy Williams, Ivanhoe Health Correspondent
ORLANDO, Fla. (Ivanhoe Newswire) — Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a potentially devastating anxiety disorder caused by exposure to traumatic events like combat, rape, assault and disaster. But prolonged exposure therapy could help trauma patients overcome a painful past.
People who suffer from PTSD may re-experience traumatic events, avoid reminders of the event, feel emotionally numb, or exhibit unnecessary outbursts of anger.
Patients who recall their trauma are more likely to overcome PTSD, according to recent research. With prolonged exposure therapy, patients vividly recount a traumatic event until they can confront their past with less emotional response.
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This article establishes the standard of care for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). We have known for years that avoidance and escape of our emotions serves paradoxically to escalate those very feelings we want to stop. Not only is this dynamic applicable in PTSD, it applies to a variety of mental health disorders. In fact, it is a central tenant of Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), which also has been shown effective in the treatment of PTSD because it invites us to be mindful of our painful feelings rather than trying to escape them.
The notion of “unremembered” trauma is more controversial. While some people are able to engage in such incredible denial and repression that they are able to “totally forget” trauma, this really applies only to a very small number of people. Most of us remember vividly the incidents that trouble us. In fact, we can’t get the images, sounds, smells, and contexts out of our head no matter how hard we try. Sometimes people with depression and anxiety are so overwhelmed with their feelings that they presume some horrible incident would be required in their history to produce such sickening symptoms. But that is not the case.
We don’t have to have trauma in our lives to have very debilitating symptoms. Searching for a “cause” for our feelings is not nearly as productive as developing a strategy to overcome our feelings that hurt us. In PTSD the strategy is exposure (re-living the trauma in a safe and guided way, experiencing the feelings without so much of the overwhelm). In depression and anxiety, the treatment is a bit more complex and is discussed in Depressed & Anxious.
