The Journey Back from PTSD

/ Mind Therapy Clinic/
The Journey Back from PTSD

So, how do you know you if you have PTSD? What are the signs?

Symptoms usually start soon after the traumatic event, but less often they may first appear months or years later – often triggered by another traumatic episode. Symptoms may come and go over time; however, if the symptoms last longer than four weeks, and interfere with your work or home life, you might be experiencing PTSD.

While it has become apparent that supportive talk therapy by itself is not very helpful for PTSD, specific trauma-focused therapies that address the way trauma is stored in the mind/body are effective. There are treatment methods that research has shown to be effective for treating trauma:

  • Cognitive Behavior Therapy

  • Prolonged Exposure Therapy

  • EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing)

  • Somatic Psychotherapy

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Understanding Holistic Trauma Treatment - Education Event 1 CE

/ Il Davide/
Understanding Holistic Trauma Treatment - Education Event 1 CE

Learn how traditional therapeutic methods including Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Sensorimotor Psychotherapy can be integrated with non-traditional therapies, such as yoga, neurofeedback, meditation to help resolve the implicit memories associated with trauma.  

This workshop for 1 CE is suitable for clinicians at the intermediate and advanced level.

Guest Presenter:  Adriana Westby-Trend, PhD,Clinical Director, PCH – Psychological Care & Healing, Residential and Outpatient Treatment, Venice, CA

Date/Time:  Friday, March 17, 11:30am to 1:15pm

Location: Il Davide – 901 A Street, San Rafael

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The Role Medications Play in the Treatment of PTSD - Trauma Series by Mark Schiller, MD

/ Mind Therapy Clinic/
The Role Medications Play in the Treatment of PTSD - Trauma Series by Mark Schiller, MD

Psychotherapy is the keystone of PTSD treatment.  Nevertheless, medications play an important role and often included to facilitate the psychotherapeutic treatments.  Medication can help improve core symptoms as well as other problems related to the traumatic experience, such as depression, anxiety, or excessive alcohol or drug use.

For people who have experienced trauma, there may be changes in the brain that are linked to their ability to manage stress.  Specifically, people with PTSD have changes in the balance of certain chemicals - called neurotransmitters -  in the brain than those who do not have PTSD.  These imbalances in different neurotransmitter systems are the focus of medication treatment. 

There of different classes of medications that are used to address different types of symptoms.

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How trauma stress is passed down to children and burdens families with mental disorders - Trauma Series by Kenneth Perlmutter, PhD

/ Mind Therapy Clinic/
How trauma stress is passed down to children and burdens families with mental disorders - Trauma Series by Kenneth Perlmutter, PhD

Addiction, compulsion, disordered eating and mental illness typically show up in people from families that have experienced significant losses from which members of the system have never fully recovered.

Families burdened by these legacies of loss find themselves caught in repetitive cycles of illness and relapse, reinforced by learned responses that are transmitted across the generations.  Rather than see these families as dysfunctional, it has proven more useful to think of them as “wounded.” The wounded family system displays a set of environmental characteristics dubbed “the dastardly D’s.”  This vignette describes a family burdened with inherited trauma stress... 

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How do people with PTSD come back to normal? - Trauma Series by David Campell, MD

/ Mind Therapy Clinic/
How do people with PTSD come back to normal? - Trauma Series by David Campell, MD

So, how do you know you if you have it? What are the signs?

Symptoms usually start soon after the traumatic event, but less often they may first appear months or years later – often triggered by another traumatic episode. Symptoms may come and go over time; however, if the symptoms last longer than four weeks, and interfere with your work or home life, you might be experiencing PTSD.

While it has become apparent that supportive talk therapy by itself is not very helpful for PTSD, specific trauma-focused therapies that address the way trauma is stored in the mind/body are effective.  There are treatment methods that research has shown to be effective for treating trauma: 

  • Cognitive Behavior Therapy 
  • Prolonged Exposure Therapy 
  • EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing)
  • Somatic Psychotherapy
Read More

Who gets PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) and why? - Trauma Series by David Campell, MD

/ Mind Therapy Clinic/
Who gets PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) and why? - Trauma Series by David Campell, MD

Since announcing Trauma Services as a specialty at Mind Therapy Clinic, we’ve been receiving a lot of questions about therapy as it relates to trauma. Most commonly people want to know what is PTSD, and who gets it and why?

With so many traumatic experiences in today’s news – from police shootings, racial tensions, war, car crashes, crosswalk and bicycle accidents, physical and sexual assaults, gun violence, natural disasters, racial and economic fallouts, etc. - it makes sense that there is a heightened awareness and interest in the need to fully understand the impact of these events and treatments for those who are affected.  Media often presents PTSD with a military focus, but recent research has revealed that civilian PTSD is 13 times more common. In fact, an estimated one out of every nine women develops PTSD (more than twice as likely as men).*  So, what is considered PTSD and who should receive treatment? 

Let’s start with how does someone become traumatized?

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