PTSD Treatment in Grand Rapids

What is the best treatment for PTSD?

The best treatment for PTSD is, in my experience, Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT), as evidenced by its roughly 25 years of successful research and practice. Other therapies have also shown success in clinical research. Prolonged Exposure, for example, has been shown to require a much longer time in therapy than CPT (Resick, Monsoon, Chard, 2016), while EMDR research has been encouraging thus far but is still developing. 

CPT works to move activity from the alarm center of the brain (amygdala), which can be initiated by exposure to traumatic events, to the reason center (frontal lobes). This allows the brain to stop producing distress chemicals that activate the fight-flight-freeze response which puts the body on high alert and causes the person to perceive non-threatening environmental stimuli as dangerous. When activity moves to the frontal lobes, the body relaxes and the person is able to more accurately identify situations in their social environment (Resick, Monsoon, Chard, 2016).

CPT is a structured therapy that focuses on identifying and restructuring the client’s maladaptive cognitions, known in the treatment model as “stuck points.” Techniques such as empathic listening, guided discovery, and socratic dialogue are compassionately applied by the therapist, targeting the person’s avoidance and helping them to approach feared thoughts with more accurate conclusions. This allows the natural recovery process to unfold. Through this process, many of my clients have described feeling better not only emotionally but also physically, as if a weight has literally been lifted.

Can PTSD Be Cured?

The question of whether PTSD can be cured is an interesting one and depends on how “cured” is defined. I prefer to think of it in terms of the ability to live life without PTSD interfering to a significant degree. By this definition, many of my clients have recovered effectively from PTSD. Anecdotally, I’ve seen clients take actions that they would not have even considered prior to entering therapy, such as full-time employment in stressful settings.

What are the 17 symptoms of PTSD?

The 17 symptoms of PTSD--which must be experienced for more than a month following a traumatic or stressful event in which the person was exposed to death, threatened death, threatened or actual serious injury, or threatened or actual sexual violence by direct exposure, witnessing an event, learning that a relative or close friend was exposed to a stressful or traumatic event, or indirect exposure to traumatic details (often in a professional setting by first responders)--are the following:

• Intrusive, upsetting memories of the stressful or traumatic event

• Flashbacks (involuntarily reexperiencing the event, often through physical sensations similar to those experienced during the event)

• Nightmares

• Avoidance of thoughts or feelings that remind the person of traumatic event

• Avoidance of objects, people, places, and situations that remind the person of the traumatic event

• Inability to remember important details of the event

• Negative thoughts and beliefs about oneself, others, and the world

• Blaming self or others for causing the event

• Feeling distant and cut off from others, and 

• Difficulty feeling positive emotions and loving feelings for others

• Reduced interest in activities previously enjoyed

• Irritability and anger

• Risky behaviors

• Exaggerated startle response

• Hypervigilance

• Insomnia

• Difficulty concentrating

If you feel any of these symptoms relate to you, please get in contact and I can help.

How long does it take to recover from PTSD?

The length of time that it takes to recover from PTSD is dependent on the treatment modality and the individual’s commitment to therapy.

As noted above, the traditional Prolonged Exposure approach can take years of therapy in some cases. While the CBT/CPT model requires the client to spend time on specific daily practice assignments, its brief duration is one of its most appealing aspects, as it requires only 12-15 sessions (Resick, Monsoon, Chard, 2016).

What’s more, clients often see relief in symptoms after only a few sessions of CPT.