Many psychotherapic treatments have been developed over the period of time to cope up with post traumatic stress disorder. The basic treatment of the disorder starts from educating the patient and his family about the disorder, its affects and symptoms. And then counseling about how to manage the symptoms of the disorder and for the safety provisions too. There is no perfect generally accepted therapy for the disorder because the nature of the therapy to be used depends upon the symptoms etc.
However the best therapy to be used for a specific situation depends upon the healthiness of discussion that takes place between the patient and the health professional. Some of the treatments of post traumatic stress disorder includes exposure therapy, eye movement desensitization and reprocessing , critical incident stress management etc. Exposure Therapy In Exposure therapy, the activity of intentionally recalling and facing the memories of the event is done, so that the guts of exposure to the memories of the event can be developed in the patient and so that the patient starts feeling less insecure.
In this way the patient becomes strong enough to confront with his own memories and feel secure and confident. The success of this therapy raised an association between exposure to memories and successful treatment of this disorder; however there are some other treatments developed in which memory recall is not essential for remission of the symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder. Critical incident stress management This treatment involves the attempt for the reduction of traumatic effects of the event on the prospect ; these attempts are done so that the full-fledge post traumatic stress disorder can be avoided .
However this treatment is not a recommended one because studies have showed that this treatment do not help in preventing the post traumatic stress disorder and sometimes it has negative affects on the patient hence this treatment is not recommended to use generally. Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing(EMDR) EMDR is a treatment which is specifically developed for post traumatic stress disorder and this treatment is a copy write of an institute. This an eight phased treatment which involves various psychological standards and protocols to make the treatment more effective.
The eight phase of the treatment includes firstly the history taking session, then it is ensured that the patient can handle emotional distress, then from phase three to phase six some EMDR procedures are applied for the treatment. This procedure in its phases requires the patient to look at the finger of the health professional as he moves it back and forth. The time period taken for the treatment depends upon the intensity and the nature of the disorder.
This type of experiments and procedures are repeated several times in the treatment and then in the seventh phase the patient is asked to note down the self calming activities that the patient observes over some period of time. And then the last stage involves revaluation of the treatment and the patient. These type of treatments result in reduction and gradually elimination of emotional distress in the patients and hence the elimination of emotional distress changes the attitude and behavior of the patient.
And as always said prevention is better than cure, so a person who has experienced a traumatic event and is unable to stop thinking about it or is reluctant to discuss the event with people should consult the health professional in the earlier stage before he falls into the post traumatic stress disorder. For this the prospect should seek support not only from health professionals but the family and the social circle of the person can also play a very vital role in helping him cope up with the situation.
Even if a person has been a victim of post traumatic stress disorder, even then the family and the social circle of the person has a very important role to play. References: • American Psychiatric Association (1994). ‘Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders: DSM-IV’. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association. • Mayo clinic staff(2007), ‘Post traumatic stress disorder’, Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research (MFMER), www. mayoclinic. com/health/post-traumatic-stress-disorder • EMDR Institute Inc(2004) , ‘Brief description of Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing(EMDR)’, www. emdr. com