PTSD and journlists

Online clinic to help journalists tackle post traumatic stress
March 12, 2007
A new self-assessment website has been launched to provide journalists and those who work them with a confidential tool to help them determine if they are suffering the effects of post traumatic stress. This unique web-based clinic and research facility has been designed by Dr Anthony Feinstein, the world’s foremost authority on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in journalists, and is backed by CNN.

The online clinic at http://www.conflict-study.com/ is entirely independent, completely confidential and available to all media organizations and journalists around the world. The website provides a self-help resource for all news media professionals, even those who do not have access to a company-supported PTSD resource. One of the innovative aspects to this service is that journalists can use it while on assignment in zones of conflict.
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At least 118 journalists have been killed in Iraq while on duty, including nearly 100 Iraqis, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/
idUSN1430858520071015?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews

Yes, even journalists because they risk their lives to deliver the information about what is going on in the world. They travel to some of the most dangerous parts of the world. They travel with the men and women who fight the combat missions. They risk their lives to find out what the people are really thinking so that no one can get away with just putting spin on whatever fits their own agenda.

PTSD has different names when you look back at generations. What remains the same is that after trauma, there is stress and often illness. It doesn't matter if the report came from the ancient world or from the world today. From Egypt to India to Israel, from the US to the UK, to Canada and Australia, all humans suffer after trauma.

Symptoms
For a diagnosis of acute stress disorder, symptoms must persist for a minimum of two days to up to four weeks within a month of the trauma.

A person may be described as having acute stress disorder if other mental disorders or medical conditions do not provide a better explanation for the person's symptoms. If symptoms persist after a month, the diagnosis becomes post-traumatic stress disorder.

Symptoms include:
Lack of emotional responsiveness, a sense of numbing or detachment
A reduced sense of surroundings
A sense of not being real
Depersonalization or a sense of being dissociated from self
An inability to remember parts of the trauma, "dissociative amnesia"
Increased state of anxiety and arousal such as a difficulty staying awake or falling asleep
Trouble experiencing pleasure
Repeatedly re-experiencing the event through recurring images and/or thoughts, dreams, illusions, flashbacks
Purposeful avoidance of exposure to thoughts, emotions, conversations, places or people that remind them of the trauma
Feelings of stress interfering with functioning; social and occupational skills are impaired affecting the patient's ability to function, pursue required tasks and seek treatment

Cognitive behavioral therapy is the treatment that has met with the most success in combating ASD. It has two main components: First, it aims to change cognitions, patterns of thought surrounding the traumatic incident. Second, it tries to alter behaviors in anxiety-provoking situations.

Cognitive behavioral therapy not only ameliorates the symptoms of ASD, but also it seems to prevent people from developing post-traumatic stress disorder. The chance that a person diagnosed with acute stress disorder will develop PSTD is about 80 percent; the chance that they will develop PTSD after cognitive-behavioral therapy is only about 20 percent.

Psychological debriefing and anxiety management groups are two other types of therapy that have been examined for the treatment of ASD. Psychological debriefing involves an intense therapeutic invention immediately after the trauma, so that traumatized individuals can "talk it all out." In anxiety management groups, people share coping strategies and learn to combat stress together. However, both types of therapy have proven to be largely ineffectual for the treatment of ASD.
http://psychologytoday.com/conditions/acutestress.html

This is why early intervention works best. The longer they go without treatment, the deeper it cuts into them. Get them help as soon as possible but keep in mind, it is never too late to stop PTSD from getting worse.