Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Research Paper

Brittany Pyle

K.Miller

ENL 101

9-September-2015

Suffering in Silence

Many people think when you come home from war that nothing changes, and you go back to you old self and your old life like nothing happened to you. What many people don’t realize is how it changes people. Many veterans that come home are very much changed. Many are often diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is an anxiety disorder that develops after a traumatic experience to the person or has had a loved one that was harmed. It’s normal to feel frightened when a person is in danger. This is your “flight of fight” response which is a healthy reaction to protect a person from harm. In a person with PTSD that reaction is damaged.

The most effective type of treatment for PTSD is cognitive behavioral therapy. In cognitive therapy you talk to a therapist about the trauma and they help you to understand how to change your thoughts on the event and its aftermath. Exposure therapy’s goal is to teach you to have less fear about your memories. People learn to fear thoughts, feelings and situations that are a reminder of the event that happened. With exposure therapy you focus on memories that are less traumatic first then you will talk about the traumatic event, and this is called desensitization, which you will learn to talk about you memories a little bit at a time. The therapist at times will also ask you to remember all the bad memories at once which is called flooding. They may also practice different ways to relax when you have a bad memory. Another type of treatment is eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EDMR), in which you will focus on other stimuli like hand taps, eye movements and sounds, while talking about your traumatic event. Some are in a disagreement that this treatment actually works. You can also try group and family therapy. It helps to talk to other people that have also experienced similar situations. By sharing your story with other people it can make you more comfortable talking about your memories, and help you deal with feelings like, guilt, shame, anger, rage, and fear. They are also using medications for treatment. Medications that are serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are antidepressants that are used to treat PTSD. The chemicals in your brain affect the way you feel, like when you are have depression you may not have enough serotonin so the SSRIs raise the level in your brain. Other medications have also been used with success