PTSD
What is PTSD?
Posttraumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, might happen to someone after they’ve directly experienced, witnessed, or learned about a traumatic event such as combat, physical or sexual assault, natural disasters, a bad accident, homicide, or suicide. Although most people (~70%) experience traumatic events, not everyone goes on to develop PTSD. Here are some signs you might be experiencing PTSD:
Unwanted and intrusive thoughts of the experience
Disturbing and repeated dreams of the experience
Avoiding people, places, things, or memories of the experience
Having strong negative beliefs about yourself or the world such as “I am bad,” “the world is a bad place,” or “it was my fault this happened.”
Loss of interest in things you used to enjoy
Feeling distant from other people
Trouble experiencing positive emotions such as love or joy
Irritability or anger
Trouble sleeping
How can therapy help PTSD?
If you’ve experienced some of the above problems or think you have PTSD, the good news is that therapy can help with these issues! PTSD treatment involves facing the traumatic event with your therapist. It can be really tough work, because avoiding it may be how you’ve coped so far. You might have also found that you’re doing other things to cope, such as using alcohol or engaging in other harmful behaviors. There’s a small chance that by starting there, some of the symptoms get worse and you may want to stop therapy. But once you start doing the tough work, it is important to stick with it! By working on these issues during your sessions, and importantly, outside of sessions on your own, you’ll likely see improvement over time. While most PTSD treatments typically last around 12 sessions, this varies based on the person and may be longer or shorter depending on many factors.
Dr. Tripp is trained in evidence-based treatments (e.g. Prolonged Exposure, Cognitive Processing Therapy) that help PTSD and can discuss with you whether some of these treatments might be a good fit for what you’re experiencing.