JOINT BASE ANDREWS, Md. –
In 2010, Congress named June 27, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Awareness Day. In 2014, the Senate designated June as National PTSD Awareness Month to highlight the serious challenges after having gone through a traumatic experience and the resources available to help.
Capt. George Mitzner, a clinical psychologist at Malcolm Grow Medical Center, stated that PTSD can be brought on by a psychological, behavioral, emotional reaction to an outside stressor.
Robert A. McDonald, Secretary of Veteran Affairs recently said, "Raising PTSD awareness is essential to overcoming the myth, misinformation and stigma surrounding this mental health problem."
According to the NIH Medline Plus online magazine members of the military exposed to war or combat are at a higher risk of developing PTSD and women are more likely than men to acquire the disorder.
"The experience and actual or threatened death, serious injury or sexual violence would be a threat to one's life or physical integrity under what is called the 'Criterion A' stressor," said Mitzner. "After that, we look for intrusion symptoms, which could be a nightmare, unwanted thoughts that keep coming back or memories of these traumatic events, or a flashback."
Some behavioral changes a person may exhibit are avoidance, irritability, inability to emotionally bond, changes in cognition or mood, disconnection and withdrawal from others.
"It's important to observe how long these behavioral changes have lasted. Has this person experienced these symptoms for more than a month?" Mitzner said.
The majority of people experience at least one traumatic event, yet do not develop PTSD. For most, the reaction to the traumatic event goes away after time. Many experience a death in the family, a car accident, or something else that is traumatic. As human beings, common reactions develop to trauma, our sleep may be irregular or mood changes may occur.
For those that develop PTSD, can this disorder trouble a person for their entire lives? Not necessarily. Some individuals may experience symptoms for a while, but may find a way to manage it without treatment.
At Malcolm Grow Medical Center, the treatments the medical center provides to the men and women that suffer from PTSD have been approved as evidence based treatments by the Department of Veteran Affairs and Department of Defense.
"There are several empirically supported treatments for posttraumatic stress disorder. Those include prolonged exposure, cognitive processing therapy, and eye movement desensitization and reprocessing," said Mitzner.
The U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs explains the different forms of therapy that are most effective treatments for PTSD. PE is a type of exposure therapy that helps a person dealing with PTSD approach trauma-related thoughts, feeling, and situations that they have been avoiding to the distress they cause. The repeated exposure helps reduce the power they have to cause distress. CPT helps the individual by giving new ways to handle distressing thoughts and get an understanding of the events. EMDR causes one to focus on other stimuli like eye movements and sounds, while thinking or talking about the traumatic event, which can help to change the reaction to memories of trauma.
Capt. Mitzner wants the Andrews community to know that they can always self-identify or self-refer, and call the clinic and make an appointment if they are concerned they are experiencing some type of reaction.
Malcolm Grow accepts people without a referral, nor is one needed to visit the clinic for mental healthcare.
"In the time that I've been in, I've seen advocacy for mental health grow, which is great," said Mitzner. "I think there are people who will have reservations, but I still encourage them to come if they want to chat with someone. It's not a sign of weakness, but a sign of strength to get help. The goal is to restore a person to their full functioning capacity as soon as possible."
To learn more about PTSD click
here or to find out about VA PTSD programs in your area click
here.