Section 13
“The amount of progress in Caleb’s six years of therapy has been frustrating for everyone. “
- Caleb has been in therapy for six years
- He has been making minimal progress
“we have reason to be reasonably optimistic. Psychotherapy does work for typical PTSD.” The VA tends to favor cognitive-behavioral therapy and exposure therapy—whereby traumatic events are hashed out and rehashed until they become, theoretically, less consuming. Some state VA offices also offer group therapy. For severe cases, the agency offers inpatient programs, one of which Caleb resided in for three months in 2010.
- We can have hope, psychotherapy has been proven to work for PTSD.
- There are multiple methods but the VA prefers the cognitive-behavioral therapy and exposure therapy.
- Other methods: group therapy, for severe cases: inpatient programs
‘The VA also endorses eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy (EMDR), which is based on the theory that memories of traumatic events are, in effect, improperly stored, and tries to refile them by discussing those memories while providing visual or auditory stimulus.”
- EMDR also offered by the VA is based off the theory that memories of traumatic are in effect but improperly stored and attempted to be restored.
“There’s a fairly strong consensus around CBT and EMDR,” Brunet says. While veterans are waiting for those to work, they’re often prescribed complicated antidepressant-based pharmacological cocktails.”
- There seem to be a lot of people who agree with CBT and EMDR
- While veterans are depending on the progress of CBT and EMDR they’re prescribed antidepressant based pills with who knows what else is in them
“Currently, the agency is funding 130 PTSD-related studies, from testing whether hypertension drugs might help to examining the effectiveness of meditation therapy, or providing veterans with trauma-sensitive service dogs, like Caleb’s. The Mental Health Research Portfolio manager says the organization is “highly concerned and highly supportive” of PTSD research.”
- The VA is very concerned about their PTSD patients and are researching all methods
- Testing of drugs to increase effectiveness of therapy’s
- Testing if service dogs are an alternative
- Health Research Portfolio is concerned and supportive of their PTSD research
“But a lot of FOV members and users are impatient with the progress. Up until 2006, the VA was spending $9.9 million, just 2.5 percent of its medical and prosthetic research budget, on PTSD studies. In 2009, funding was upped to $24.5 million. But studies take a long time, and any resulting new directives take even longer to be implemented.”
- Family of Vet members are impatient with progress of the different therapy’s
- The concern for PTSD victims has risen and funding for research has been upped
- Research and validating new methods take time and anything proven to help will still have to be put into action
Rowan Counterintuitive 