Dave Navarro: A Brief Analysis

Almost every human life suffers through some sort of traumatic event; sudden death, loss, abuse, and neglect can all contribute to that moment. The trauma the person experiences can shape them as a person, and some do not deal with the trauma as well or as healthy as others. It can result in a disorder that uproots the person's life, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Dave Navarro, through careful review of data of his life choices, background, and knowledge of the most traumatic event in his life can help one conclude that he likely suffers from PTSD.

Navarro was born in 1967 in Santa Monica, California ("Dave Navarro," 2016). His parents, James Raul Navarro, and Constance Colleen Hopkins divorced when Navarro was seven years old ("Dave

“Putting things into words and music was like an exorcism at times. Once it’s out of your mind and body, the pain of the experience lessens (Flick, L 2001). Navarro is a person that obsessively documents his life; he wrote a book about being a drug addict with negative beliefs about life so he set out to prove and document those beliefs but, in the process, found a way to get sober (McAlone, 2013). He focused on destructive relationships and suicide was a heavy influence on his heart and mind (McAlone, 2013). “Millions and millions of people go through traumatic events and don’t get high. I used knowledge of this event to get away with using drugs (Jeltsen, 2015)”. Navarro says his relapse into drugs was a conscious decision, that he wasn’t feeling any better in the drug-free version of his life, so he just went back to the drugs (Jeltsen, 2015), all while still documenting the chaos of his life. He didn’t care about his own life, and on multiple occasions was ready to commit suicide “at one point he even has a lethal syringe loaded up before he finds out it was all a misunderstanding” (Jeltsen, 2015). “Tragedies defy reason; they shatter our sense of order” (Jeltsen, 2015). In recent years, a sober Navarro has become involved in advocacy work. He participates in various campaigns, like “No More” as he realized that his

While this approach also includes a 12 session treatment model, it generally focuses on three stages; “(1) Developing working alliance and letting the person tell his or her story, (2) ‘working through’ and (3) focusing on loss related to trauma and loss of therapy” (Schottenbauer, M. A., et al, 2006). Psychodynamic psychotherapy is based on many concepts, beginning with the original ideas of Sigmund Freud and including newer theories, like self-psychology (Schottenbauer, M. A., et al, 2006). This approach categorizes PTSD into two categories, simple and complex. Simple PTSD consists of short-term therapy intended for an individual who had functioned relatively well prior to a single traumatic event (Schottenbauer, M. A., et al, 2006). Complex PTSD, however, is when a patient has experienced multiple traumas, or trauma over an extended period of time (Schottenbauer, M. A., et al, 2006). Psychodynamic psychotherapy allows for the relationship between the therapist and the client to help develop the clients’ insight into their own interpersonal patterns and use reflection to develop and maintain healthier habits in terms of interpersonal interaction (Schottenbauer, M. A., et al, 2006). While this approach may work more slowly than other treatments, it establishes a process that allows the client to continue improving after treatment ends; it also may have a better ability