The main treatments for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are talking therapies and medicine. Traumatic events can be very difficult to come to terms with, but confronting your feelings and getting professional help is often the only way of effectively treating PTSD.
Trauma-focused psychotherapy as preferred treatment — For most adults diagnosed with PTSD, we suggest first-line treatment with a trauma-focused psychotherapy that includes exposure rather than other types of therapy, or medication (eg, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor [SSRI] or serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake ...
How Exposure Therapy Helps Those With PTSD. Exposure therapy has been thoroughly studied and referred to as the gold standard for PTSD patients, helping them process emotions and overcome their fears. The goal of exposure therapy is to actively confront the things that a person fears.
Written Exposure Therapy (WET) is a brief, 5-session exposure-based psychotherapy for PTSD that is recommended by the VA/DoD Clinical Practice Guideline.
Without treatment, the psychological symptoms of PTSD are likely to worsen over time. Along with severe depression and anxiety, other serious outcomes may include: Increased suicidal ideation. Problems managing anger and aggression.
If their symptoms do not get better after 6 to 8 weeks, you can encourage them to talk to their health care provider. You also can: Offer emotional support, understanding, patience, and encouragement. Learn about PTSD so you can understand what your friend is experiencing.
The PTSD medications that are most frequently prescribed are Zoloft (sertraline), Paxil (paroxetine), Prozac (fluoxetine), and Effexor (venlafaxine). Zoloft and Paxil are FDA-approved for treating PTSD, but other medications are often prescribed off-label depending on an individual's specific needs.
A person with PTSD has four main types of difficulties: Re-living the traumatic event through unwanted and recurring memories, flashbacks or vivid nightmares. There may be intense emotional or physical reactions when reminded of the event including sweating, heart palpitations, anxiety or panic.
Mental Illness. In an article published by Psychology Today, Tracy S. Hutchinson, Ph. D., supports the argument that PTSD is a mental injury, not a mental illness, writing that “PTSD symptoms are a natural reaction to a distressing event where one may have felt overwhelmed, afraid, or helpless.
For some people, loud noises, crowds, and flashing lights can trigger debilitating symptoms. For others, PTSD triggers may be subtler, including smells or locations that remind the individual of the traumatic experience. Saying the wrong thing can also trigger someone with PTSD.
Seeing a person, thing, or place related to the trauma can trigger a reaction. Likewise, seeing a similar trauma on the news or in a movie can set off symptoms. Thoughts, feelings, emotions, scents, situations, sounds, and tastes can all trigger PTSD again.
External PTSD triggers might include media triggers such as TV shows, movies, and news, seeing people or traits of people that remind them of the traumatic event, or locational cues such as certain buildings or venues.
In primary care, the recommended first-line pharmacotherapy agents for treating PTSD are selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, such as paroxetine 20–40 mg once daily for at least 10 weeks. Second-line pharmacological interventions include the use of mirtazapine or phenelzine.
As with most mental illnesses, no cure exists for PTSD, but the symptoms can be effectively managed to restore the affected individual to normal functioning. The best hope for treating PTSD is a combination of medication and therapy.
And the disorder is especially hard to treat because it is so often linked to other mental health concerns: addiction, depression, anxiety. Unless clinicians are specifically trained to ask about trauma, they might struggle to identify PTSD as the root issue in a patient.
Unlike other therapeutic modalities, trauma therapy delves deeper into a client's memory of a painful experience in order to “release” it. Common examples used in practice include cognitive behavioral therapy, eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, and prolonged exposure therapies.
First choices in medications
Your health care provider may prescribe paroxetine (Paxil) or sertraline (Zoloft). The serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor (SNRI) venlafaxine (Effexor XR) also may be an option for social anxiety disorder.