Talk is cheap but works on PTSD

Talk is cheap but works on PTSD
Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
December 11, 2013

Do you want to talk about it? Seems like a terrible question to ask a veteran doing everything possible to stop thinking about it. Kind of like adding garlic salt to a wound to them. This notion is proven to be a fear based on reality when they are expected to just repeat the story they want to forget over and over again yet never finding the closure they need or the end result of making peace with it. Still when it is done right, they actually do heal and on the other side of this dark valley, they come out better.

Talk Therapy Reverses Biological, Structural Brain Changes In PTSD Patients
Medical Daily
By Lecia Bushak
Dec 3, 2013

Seeing a therapist may not only improve mental health, but can also have a positive effect on underlying biological features of mental disorders, a new study suggests.

Scientists in Hungary have published a paper in Biological Psychiatry, with results that show that cognitive behavioral therapy — also known as talk therapy — can reduce psychological symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as well as the underlying biological changes the disorder causes.

The study, led by the National Institute of Psychiatry and Addictions as well as the University of Szeged in Hungary, analyzed 39 PTSD patients and included a group of 31 people who had experienced trauma but did not develop PTSD. The researchers used magnetic resonance imaging to measure certain brain regions and took blood samples to find changes in expression of FKBP5, a gene that plays a role in PTSD and stress hormones. The PTSD patients then received 12 weeks of cognitive behavioral therapy, while the other 31 did not receive any therapy. After 12 weeks of therapy, the researchers once again measured brain regions and FKBP5. They found that PTSD patients had lower FKBP5 gene expression, as well as smaller hippocampal and medial orbitofrontal cortex volumes, before talk therapy, which was linked to an improvement in PTSD symptoms.

“The results show that structural changes in the brain, such as the shrinkage of the hippocampus, are reversible in trauma victims,” Dr. Szabolcs Kéri said in a press release. “Talk therapy may help normalize these alterations and improve symptoms. Furthermore, the regeneration of hippocampus correlated with the expression of a gene that balances the activity of the stress hormone cortisol at the level of cells.”

read more here

Now that you read that part, there is scientific proof that healing can and often does take place. What cannot be reversed, they are able to deal with because the worst is behind them.

This can work but only if there is closure so they can live with their memories by seeing it all from a different perspective.

A soldier in Vietnam was on a path with two of his best buddies on each side of him. His boot lace was untied. He stopped to kneel down to tie it. Seconds later a bomb exploded killing both of this buddies instantly sending shrapnel into his body. He blamed himself for their deaths. He believed had he been in between them he would have taken the blast and maybe both his buddies would have survived. What made it worse for him was that he had done a sweep of the path just before they headed out on patrol. That soldier was my husband's nephew. He was just 19 when this happened. He came close to making peace with this but never made it all the way. He committed suicide.

A National Guardsman couldn't escape the memory of a family in Iraq he killed. He had forgotten what he tried to do to prevent it from happening and every time he looked at his own kids, he saw the faces of the children in the back seat of the car he opened fire on. He survived two suicide attempts but he had the right kind of healing, saw the whole thing differently and made peace with himself.

A Marine sitting in the back of a humvee switched seats with his buddy right before the sniper's bullet broke threw the glass. As he held his buddy in his arms, the buddy looked up at him and said "It should have been you" right before he died. They said stupid things to each other all the time but this time, there was no time to apologize.

Now imagine those events having to be told and retold with no closure, no resolve, no peace provided. That is how you do talk therapy the wrong way.