How is Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder treated in therapy?

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is a mental disorder that is often very painful and disabling; For this reason, it is very important to go to therapy to find a solution as soon as possible, without letting the problem become too entrenched. However... How is this achieved?

In this article we will see how Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is treated in a psychotherapy center like ours.

• Related article: "What is trauma and how does it influence our lives?"

What is PTSD?

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a psychopathological alteration linked to trauma. This means that it arises after having experienced a traumatic event., usually related to some catastrophe or violent or death-related experience, such as a car accident or an attempted murder.

What turns PTSD into a psychopathological phenomenon is the sequelae it leaves on the person, which have to do with with reliving over and over again the memories associated with the trauma and with the maintenance of a state of almost constant. This psychological alteration can last for many years if it is not treated in psychotherapy.

Symptoms

Let's see in more detail what are the symptoms that characterize PTSD.

1. Tendency to relive the traumatic experience through flashbacks

It is common for people with PTSD to experience flashbacks about what happened to them (or what they think happened to them) during the event that caused the trauma. At times like this, the person's attention is focused on very vivid memories that come accompanied by a great emotional charge, usually generating anxiety or anguish.

2. Avoiding Places That Could Trigger Flashbacks

As a consequence of the discomfort caused by flasbacks, the person begins to try to anticipate when they will occur, and this predisposes them to avoid certain situations.

3. Nightmares

Nightmares are very common in people with PTSD, and many times they do not even have a direct relationship with the content of the traumatic memories.

4. Irritability and outbursts of frustration

Because PTSD leads people to spend a lot of time under stress, they become more sensitive to anything that causes them discomfort. As a result, you are more likely to experience outbursts of anger, and to be irritable in your social relationships.

5. Emotional fatigue

As a consequence of all the above, the person with PTSD spends a lot of time in a state of physical and mental exhaustion.

6. Dissociative symptoms

It is very common for people with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder to suffer dissociative symptoms. Specifically, two: derealization and depersonalization, in which the person feels emotionally disconnected from her environment or from her own body, respectively.

• You may be interested: "Types of stress and their triggers"

This is the treatment of PTSD in a psychology center

These are some of the therapeutic strategies and resources that are used to treat PTSD.

1. Exposure technique

This is a therapeutic resource widely used in anxiety disorders in general. It consists of "training" the patient to get used to what causes anguish or anxiety, without trying to get away from it either physically or mentally. Following the guidelines given by the psychotherapist, he manages to make his body adapt to these kinds of situations, so that in the case of PTSD loses respect for trauma, stops mythologizing it and assuming that it is a wall against which it will crash emotionally.

2. Cognitive restructuring

Cognitive restructuring is one of the components of cognitive-behavioral therapy most used as it has a wide variety of applications and is useful in treating many disorders.

It consists of helping the patient to detect maladaptive thought patterns that reinforce the existence of psychopathology, and to get rid of the beliefs to which this problematic way of interpreting reality usually gives way. For example, among people who have developed post-traumatic stress disorder, it is common for them to come to assume who are predestined to suffer and to try to avoid situations capable of unleashing flashbacks.

3. Image rewriting therapy

Image rewriting is a resource that helps to treat post-traumatic stress and its associated conditions, such as post-traumatic nightmares. It consists of recreating in the imagination the experience that has given way to the trauma, reinterpreting it in a way that is easier to accept and process.

4. Application of emotional management guidelines

In psychotherapy, the normal thing is not to limit yourself to treating the specific problem for which the person has gone to the consultation: also it is sought to enhance those habits that favor a greater ability to manage emotions in general.

These measures to adopt vary greatly depending on the characteristics of each patient, but some examples of this are the techniques of relaxation and Mindfulness, the establishment of routines to sleep well, the guidelines for conflict management and the expression of frustrations, etc.

Looking for professional support for post-traumatic stress?

If you think you have developed the typical symptoms of PTSD and are looking for psychotherapeutic support, get in touch with our team of professionals. On Psychologists Majadahonda We attend both in person and through online therapy by video call, and we have many years of experience dealing with this type of psychopathology. Our contact details are available here.

Bibliographic references:

• Azcárate Mengual, M. TO. (2007). Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Brain Damage. Madrid: Díaz de Santos.
• Bisson, J.; et. to the. (2019). The International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies New Guidelines for the Prevention and Treatment of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: Methodology and Development Process. Journal of Traumatic Stress. 32 (4): pp. 475 - 483.
• Rothschild, B. (2000). The Body Remembers: The Psychophysiology of Trauma and Trauma Treatment. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.
• Villalta, L.; Smith, P.; Hickin, N.; Stringaris, A. (2018). Emotion regulation difficulties in traumatized youth: a meta-analysis and conceptual review. European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. 27 (4): pp. 527 - 544.
• Waltman, S.H.; Shearer, D.; Moore, B.A. (2018). Management of Post-Traumatic Nightmares: a Review of Pharmacologic and Nonpharmacologic Treatments Since 2013. Current Psychiatry Reports. 20(12): 108.