Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is a very specific type of anxiety disorder. PTSD counsellors help sufferers cope with their intense feelings. First, people must realise that PTSD is an unhealthy condition, and that help is available.
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder psychotherapists must talk to their clients for a time to determine if what they are experiencing is actually PSTD. There are a number of criteria. A person must have had or witnessed an experience involving death or serious injury or the threat of the same.
To diagnose PTSD, psychotherapists must determine that the client had an intense response of horror and helplessness. The person will have had times of reliving the experience, perhaps even in the form of flashbacks. Flashbacks are intense sensory experiences where all the incident’s sights, sounds, and smells might come flooding back. It is as if the incident is happening all over again.
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People with true PTSD usually take great pains to avoid any situations that resemble the disturbing experience. They may feel a sense of emotional numbness. They may be unable to continue their usual relationships because they cannot feel emotions.
On the other hand, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder sufferers may feel constantly vigil and alert. This may lead them to have insomnia. With little sleep to go on, they may have trouble concentrating.
PTSD symptoms always last longer than one month. They can be so disturbing that they keep people from enjoying their usual activities and completing their daily work. If a person has all these PTSD symptoms, it is best to seek PTSD treatment.
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder may come after a soldier has had a horrific experience or ongoing disturbing experiences during war. Shame and guilt are often associated with war veterans with PTSD. They often feel uncomfortable about the actions they have to take in war. They may feel that they are not good people because they have participated in violence or have not been able to stop it.
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PTSD veterans, like other victims of PTSD, may have nightmares about the traumatic incident. They may unintentionally alienate their families. Often the alienation starts because the PTSD veteran does everything possible to avoid talking about the disturbing event. This is how they shut their families and friends out of their lives.
Then, they distance themselves further when they act in strange ways. PTSD family support is essential when the victim is upsetting the family with unreasonable anger over small incidents or getting lost in vivid flashbacks. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder counselling services help families to understand and to support their distressed family members.
PTSD counsellors can work with victims of the disorder of post-traumatic stress events. Work can be done to avoid or correct self destructive behaviours. Alcohol and drug abuse not only ravage the body, but are also damaging to relationships and to self-esteem. It is easy for PTSD sufferers to fall into these addictions.
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder counsellors also treat victims of abuse. People who have been in an abusive relationship for a lengthy period of time may show symptoms as disturbing as those faced by war veterans. PTSD and child abuse often go hand in hand. The symptoms may not show up for years after the abuse has taken place.
People who have suffered from abuse are especially prone to PTSD symptoms like memory problems and being easily startled. Memory problems may be a part of the coping strategies they have unwittingly learned. If they do not remember the abuse, they can feel safe being cared for by the abuser. For many children, there is no other option that they know.
Natural disasters such as earthquakes or floods may bring about PTSD symptoms in a great many people at the same time. PTSD counsellors must be ready to treat these people in order to prevent prolonged suffering. It is not only the people who are devastated by the disaster who are traumatised, either. Rescue workers may suffer flashbacks of the events as well.
However, it is the disturbing events that are brought on maliciously and with harmful intent that seem to cause the most severe forms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. When people are assaulted, they feel powerless and unrecognized rage may be a part of the picture. When they watch a senseless and brutal murder, they may never get over it. They may simply learn to cope through post-traumatic stress disorder management courses.
Alternatively, you can join PTSDA. This is like alcoholics Anonymous but for PTSD sufferers. PTSD Anonymous has meetings online every week.
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder therapists are available for help with these problems. People need not suffer alone. They may join a PTSD support group, but inpidual psychotherapy may be appropriate as well. When people with PTSD can learn to cope with their experiences and keep their reactions under control, they can find some relief.