Study: Group therapy helps with combat stress
By Kelly Kennedy - Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Jul 29, 2008 6:40:44 EDT
Three new studies looking at combat stress have found group exposure therapy seems to work, that troops with traumatic brain injuries are more likely to have post-traumatic stress disorder, and that stress debriefings held after traumatic events don’t appear to prevent PTSD.
The research comes as the Department of Veterans Affairs works to find the best treatment methods for combat veterans. It follows a report by Rand Corp. that showed only one treatment method — exposure therapy — has been proven to help PTSD in studies by objective researchers.
The first study looked at a program that had been in place for four years at the Atlanta VA Medical Center. The center’s Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Clinical Team began researching group-based exposure treatment.
Past studies have shown group therapy to be ineffective on veterans with PTSD, but authors of this study, published in the April issue of the Journal of Traumatic Stress, said the amount of exposure therapy — 60 hours — in this group may be the key to why it works.
First, nine to 11 people get to know each other and talk about their experiences before they joined the military. Then, they spend several weeks talking about their wartime experiences.
Each person gives a 2½-hour presentation to the group about what they witnessed, and then they privately listen to recordings of their own presentation 10 times. Each then gives a second presentation about their traumatic wartime experiences, which they also listen to 10 times. Toward the end of 18 weeks, they work on feelings of grief and guilt.
A total of 93 Vietnam veterans, four Gulf War veterans, one Korean War veteran and two Iraq war veterans took part in the study, with 81 percent showing “clinically significant improvement,” which was still at 81 percent six months later.
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http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/07/army_ptsdstudies_072808w/
There is an expression "misery loves company" that applies here when it comes to dealing with trauma. Notice I did not use the word "coping" because first you have to deal with it. There is a tendency to forget that soldiers are still human. There is no switch in the back of their brain to shut off what they see any more than there is an off switch for their heart (soul) to not feel as the human they were before the action. If they do not deal with the trauma, stuff it in the back of their mind, it usually eats it's way out. Talking about it right after it happens or even a day later, helps get it out and healing can begin then and there before the trauma has a chance to cut deeper. In a perfect world the soldiers would be debriefed every time there was any kind of traumatic events, much like the police departments, fire departments and civilian victims are debriefed, but combat is not a perfect world where everything fits in perfectly.
Sometimes guns jam. Sometimes vehicles break down. Sometimes communications get messed up. The same thing goes on inside of the soldier. Memories get jammed. Emotions break down. Messages entering into the brain are mistranslated. The sooner they begin to deal with it, the sooner they can begin to heal. This we've known since before most of these soldiers were even born. It's time to put what we know into action or, as I said before, it will be like trying to hold off a tsunami with a beach shovel. kc
