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Psychiatrists and other mental health professionals also treat cases of PTSD by using psychodynamic psychotherapy. Post-traumatic stress disorder results, in part, from the difference between the individual's personal values or view of the world and the reality that he or she witnessed or lived during the traumatic event. Psychodynamic psychotherapy, then, focuses on helping the individual examine personal values and how behavior and experience during the traumatic event violated them. The goal is resolution of the conscious and unconscious conflicts that were thus created. In addition, the individual works to build self-esteem and self-control, develops a good and reasonable sense of personal accountability and renews a sense of integrity and personal pride.
Whether PTSD sufferers are treated by therapists who use cognitive/behavioral treatment or psychodynamic treatment, traumatized people need to identify the triggers for their memories of trauma, as well as identifying those situations in their lives in which they feel out of control and the conditions that need to exist for them to feel safe. Therapists can help people with PTSD to construct ways of coping with the hyperarousal and painful flashbacks that come over them when they are around reminders of the trauma. The trusting relationship between patient and therapist is crucial in establishing this necessary feeling of safety. Medications can help in this process also.
Group therapy can be an important part of treatment for PTSD. Trauma often affects people's ability to form relationships--especially such traumas as rape or domestic violence. It can profoundly affect their basic assumption that the world is a safe and predictable place, leaving them feeling alienated and distrustful, or else anxiously clinging to those closest to them. Group therapy helps people with PTSD to regain trust and a sense of community, andto regain their ability to relate in healthy ways to other people in a controlled setting.
Most PTSD treatment is done on an outpatient basis. However, for people whose symptoms are making it impossible to function or for people who have developed additional symptoms as a result of their PTSD, inpatient treatment is sometimes necessary to create the vital atmosphere of safety in which they can examine their flashbacks, re-enactments of the trauma, and self-destructive behavior. Inpatient treatment is also important for PTSD sufferers who have developed alcohol or other drug problems as a result oftheir attempts to "self medicate." Occasionally too, inpatient treatment can be very useful in helping a PTSD patient to get past a particularly painful period of their therapy.
The recognition of PTSD as a major health problem in this country is quite recent. Over the past 15 years, research has produced a major explosion of knowledge about the ways people deal with trauma--what places them at risk for development of long-term problems, and what helps them to cope. Psychiatrists and other mental health professionals are working hard to disseminate this understanding, and an increasing number of mental healthprofessionals are receiving specialized training to help them reach out to people with Post-traumatic Stress Disorder in their communities.
For comprehensive information on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other anxiety disorders, visit the .
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(c) Copyright 1988 American Psychiatric Association
Produced by the APA Joint Commission on Public Affairs and the Division of Public Affairs. This document contains the text of a pamphlet developed for educational purposes and does not necessarily reflect opinion or policy of the American Psychiatric Association.
Additional Resources
Burgess, Ann Wolbert. Rape: Victims of Crisis. Bowie, Maryland: Robert J. Brady, Co., 1984.
Cole, PM, Putnam, FW. ";Effect of Incest on Self and Social Functioning: A Developmental Psychopathology Perspective." Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 60:174-184, 1992.
Eitinger, Leo, Krell, R, Rieck, M. The Psychological and Medical Effects of Concentration Camps and Related Persecutions on Survivors of the Holocaust. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1985.
Eth, S. and R.S. Pynoos. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in Children. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Press, Inc., 1985.
Herman, Judith L. Trauma and Recovery. New York: Basic Books, 1992.
Janoff, Bulman R. Shattered Assumptions. New York: Free Press, 1992.
Lindy, Jacob D. Vietnam: A Casebook. New York: Brunner/Mazel, 1987.
Kulka, RA, Schlenger, WE, Fairbank J, et al. Trauma and the Vietnam War Generation. New York: Brunner/Mazel, 1990.
Ochberg F., Ed. Post-traumatic Therapies. New York: Brunner/Mazel, 1989.
Raphael, B. When Disaster Strikes: How Individuals and Communities Cope with Catastrophe. New York: Basic Books, 1986.
Ursano, RJ, McCaughey, B, Fullerton, CS. Individual and Community Responses to Trauma and Disaster: the Structure of Human Chaos. Cambridge, England: The Cambridge University Press, 1993.
continue: PTSD Resources-Phone Numbers
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