Healing PTSD with CBT and meditation

Last night on PBS there was a Part II of "The Emotional Life" series and I tuned in late but was able to catch the 20 minute segment on PTSD.  The program was moderated by Daniel Gilbert a psychology professor at Harvard.  The PTSD portion presented a great deal about the disorder and followed two veterans - a Vietnam Marine Corps vet and an Iraq Navy vet.  In the presentation the Marine had gown down hill for 30 years after his combat experiences and had lost his job and become alcoholic and his flash backs were just as intense after 30 years as they were in the first year.  His experience was followed into a cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) study designed specifically for PTSD at the University of Pennsylvania.  After 18 sessions he said that since the CBT sessions he felt the best that he ever had in his entire life and was enjoying life again.  This therapy was/is completely free of medications.  From what I could tell the sessions were a matter of repeating his experiences over and over again until the negative energies and emotions were gone from them.  Gilbert stressed that in order to cure PTSD you have to turn around and face it or it will continue to engulf you.  The ex-sailor who had an Iraqi die in his arms knew about the therapy and said that he just wasn't ready to face his issues.  He had lost a good job and his problems was causing his wife a great deal of difficulty but he refused to face his issues.  I truly believe that you have to face your PTSD in order to heal it.  I was able to do that in the type of meditation that I do and it continues to work for all of life's issues.

Here's a portion of a web page from the University of Pennsylvania at http://www.med.upenn.edu/ctsa/ptsd_treatment.html  (From what I can tell, the Marine went through the "Prolonged Exposure" therapy.  It also mentions self-help books as being an aid, and I have plenty of those that I used along with my meditation.  My counselor who I visited for six months was a nit wit, but he did identify things as abuse that I would never have considered them to be.)

Treatment of PTSD

Medication

The use of drugs in PTSD treatment has been helpful in relieving symptoms of PTSD patients. A collection of antidepressants have been found helpful and three medications more specifically designed for PTSD treatment are listed below:

• Fluoxetine
• Sertraline
• Paroxetine

Unfortunately, because these drugs do not treat the underlying cause of the disorder, PTSD medications are commonly associated with relapse. They do nonetheless provide some symptomatic relief.

Cognitive behavioral therapy

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) has been implemented for the treatment of a wide range of psychological disorders. The specific CBT techniques used to treat PTSD vary by case but the approach generally seeks to alter irrational thoughts and dispel any negative emotions associated with the traumatic experience.

Several forms of cognitive behavioral therapy have been proven effective in treating PTSD.

• Exposure Therapy: patient exposed to repeated exposure of stressful stimuli
• Stress Inoculation Training (SIT): patient educated about anxiety symptoms and coping mechanisms
• Cognitive Therapy: patient taught to identify trauma-related irrational or dysfunctional beliefs that influence decision-making and emotional responses
• Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR): patient discusses trauma while tracking the movement of a rapidly moving finger with his/her eyes
• Combination: patients may undergo many of the above techniques concurrently (e.g. exposure therapy with stress inoculation training)

CBT reduces both the severity of PTSD as well as other psychological states associated with the disorder such as general anxiety and depression. The benefits of treatment are typically retained with low rates of relapse without continued CBT sessions or other forms of treatment (medication, supportive counseling, and relaxation). Other forms of treatment that are incorporated into CBT include general supportive counseling and deep breathing exercises, a form of relaxation treatment.

Exposure therapy, SIT, and cognitive therapy are the most widely accepted CBT treatments of PTSD and controlled research studies and case reports provide strong empirical evidence for the efficacy of these techniques. While clinical studies also demonstrate the efficacy of EMDR, the unconventional aspects of the treatment still raise questions about the technique. The technique was devised by Dr. F. Shapiro and the protocols and discussion of the treatment are recorded in Shapiro (1999, 2001, 2002).

Prolonged exposure has been shown to be one of the most effective treatment strategies developed and tested by Dr. Edna Foa. Treatment typically involves 9-12 weekly sessions that last 90-120 minutes. The Center for the Treatment and Study of Anxiety (CTSA) offers a treatment program based upon prolonged exposure therapy. The Center’s program is focused upon discussing fears, recalling the traumatic event, relaxation training, and confronting safe situations that involve memories of the trauma.

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Self-help treatment

There is a small collection of books written for PTSD sufferers that record potentially useful self-help techniques. The books aim to help the individual manage and transform their disorder by furthering their own self-awareness and understanding. Self-help texts may provide some symptomatic relief but it is widely believed that professional treatment is necessary for a complete recovery.

Here is a site that presents an aura meditation that is similar to the one that I use.  It includes grounding which is the foundation of my meditations and can be used as a dumping ground.  The site also has a chakra meditation - I use a combination of both.  http://www.the-auras-expert.com/aura-meditation.html

I don't know about guided imagery and PTSD, but here's a site that claims to use it effectively.  http://www.healthjourneys.com/ptsd.asp

What I like about that site is the following statement which says that most PTSD survivors don't spend enough time in their bodies - and that's exactly what grounding does, brings you back into your body.:

"Our imagery for Healing Trauma (PTSD) fills the bill for help with most of these issues over time, and, in my opinion, it's just about the most potent and sophisticated imagery we offer. It starts by gently escorting the listener's awareness back down into the body (because most posttraumatic stress survivors don't spend enough time 'home' in their bodies), then moves into exploring the territory of his/her own broken heart, which ultimately leads to the discovery of his/her deepest core, the part of the self that can never be diminished or destroyed."

I've posted before a bit about this woman's experience with bipolar and PTSD but will post a portion again because along with meditation she used CBT to cure her conditions after years of incarceration and drugs.  http://intentions.wordpress.com/about/

I processed all the PTSD triggers until the flashbacks were gone, and no memory had any power over me.

As I underwent this self psychotherapy, I learned cognitive behavioral therapy and applied it to myself. I combined introspective meditation and advanced chi gung techniques to permanently dissolve every trigger inside me, until they were gone as though they had never been there in the first place.

For some people, real healing at the spiritual level is long, slow, gradual process. Then the first year came and went without any depression whatsoever, for the first time in my memory. Then the second and third year came and went without depression as well.

During this time, I worked on anger, loss, abandonment, abuse and violation, anxiety, addictions, attachments, aversions, attractions, likes, dislikes, and all my past relationships. Another year went by without depression and now, my anxiety and neuroses were making similar remissions. Gradually, the voices in my head became quieter and quieter, less and less overwhelming. The cacophony, the chorus, the storm, was, for the first time in a long time, spontaneously abating.

During the summer of 2000 I went on meditation retreat for a week. Almost six months later, on the fourteenth day of a personal isolated sitting retreat, the most powerful meditation and spiritual experience of my life surprised me out of nowhere and changed my life forever.

Unasked for and unlooked for, I had a direct experience of Self. I came into contact with what lies deep inside us all and in the process I attained a lasting inner equilibrium. That discovery caused me to fall in love with myself. It was like being born again. 

The experience recharged my spiritual, physical and mental batteries restoring to me a passion for life and living.

After literally thousands of hours of dedicated genuine and proper meditation practice, I finally had peace. In that moment of surrender and apprehension, all suffering left me and never returned. I knew who I was, what I wanted out of life, and for the first time in 25 years, I knew absolute unconditional self love.

For days I spontaneously laughed and cried, often simultaneously. I was free and I could never ever be trapped again in the same way. I knew I would never hurt myself again. I continued to practice, to keep wiping away the remaining detritus......................... much more at the site