[Music]
finding the right treatment for
post-traumatic stress disorder is one
thing
but what about supporting someone
through the treatment process and beyond
here to share supporter strategies for
your loved one with ptsd
is dr judith joseph we were talking
off-camera
obviously ptsd is not a hahahaha light
topic
but it is nice to have some levity in
these conversations and you've just been
such
a dream to work with today so thank you
for
giving us a little peaks and valleys
here so it's not just well thank you
ptsd so once a loved one is diagnosed
and receiving treatment what are the
triggers
that a supporter should look out for or
avoid so i i always warn people that
things may get worse before they're
getting better
and it makes sense if you have been
through something terrible
and this is your first time in treatment
or second or third time in treatment and
you're talking about it you're rehashing
this
sometimes you will shut down sometimes
these old behaviors will return not
opening the door
not eating sleeping differently or just
being
on edge or irritable and so yes things
may get worse before they get better
however
you know things will get better with
time if you've had success in the past
why is that why do they get worse
because when you're exposed to something
that is so
terrifying your body reacts and we
talked about the part of the brain the
amygdala
and it's hyperactivity in people with
ptsd and how it's screaming and shouting
like run for the hills
and your body listens to that amygdala
and you can have the physiological
sweating the heart racing the breathing
fast
and so the person logically knows that
okay they're not in a dangerous
situation but
their body is telling them another thing
and it's very uncomfortable for that
person
and exhausting so they will shut down
and so the supporters the loved ones
should look for signs of exhaustion
someone shutting down
someone not being a part of family life
of home life
as they used to and also reassuring them
that you know
it's going to be okay this is expected
things will get better
how do the triggers change over time
while the ptsd patient is in treatment
so you know we all have a fluid
lifestyle so
for example i gave you the story about
the child who
her trauma happened at school and when
we removed her from the school setting
things got better and then you know down
the road
we thought that she had successfully
completed the cognitive behavioral
therapy and was on the right
uh regimen and we thought you know let's
see if she can handle school again
and i warned everyone you know she will
most likely
start shutting down and we expect this
because she's going back to school
not the same school a different one but
just the thought of returning to
an environment where something
potentially could happen
or something that reminds you of
something bad that did happen can
set her off so let's all go and eyes
wide open with realistic expectations
and know that we'll get through it
together because the treatment worked
before
so there's no reason to believe that it
won't work again so then what happened
with her she went to the new school
she had she was retriggered so she shut
down initially
grazed decline and we used some of those
coping skills
we ramped up therapy so rather than once
a week we did several times weekly
we incorporated this the teachers the
the counselor in school so that if she
needed a break
she had someone to turn to and things
worked out
in that case so she was able to she was
able to successfully reintegrate into
the school system a different school
yeah but she was able to overcome those
initial triggers
and stay in school do you have to face
your triggers
so a part of cognitive behavioral
therapy is called exposure
so the more that you hide from the thing
that terrifies you the stronger that
fear becomes in the brain
it becomes more prominent in the brain
and so the more that you're able to
challenge this notion that this this
scary thing will lead to this
and to face the fair and to overcome
that hump of okay
this area was scary for me i was able to
face it and i survived nothing bad
happened i didn't die
that tells your brain that actually this
thing isn't going to kill you
and that fear center shrinks does that
make sense it does okay
we talk about exposure therapy a lot in
our series
uh with dr jenny yip on ocd okay how
that is a common treatment method so it
would make sense that this also
would address fear in that in that way
and be successful
yeah what are the key strategies for
supporters
to help the ones that they love who are
in treatment
for ptsd so someone who is experiencing
these very uncomfortable feelings of
hyper vigilance arousal
flashbacks they're not necessarily
capable in that moment of utilizing
skills that they once mastered
and so that's why having kind of like a
therapy partner is helpful
because that person knows that okay
these are some of the tools that you
used in the moment
when you were overwhelmed in the past
and so when someone is experiencing a
flashback they're not going to be able
to readily
utilize skills to calm down they may
need reminders gentle reminders like
i know you're not in a safe place right
now you are safe let's try this
breathing technique together
and so i think that supporters loved
ones can
also learn the techniques that the
person who's suffering from ptsd so you
both see some oranges then you both
squeeze oranges together
or you remind them that this is what we
can use there's another form of
therapy called dbt dialectical
behavioral therapy
that helps people who are on the more
severe
range of self-harm or or depression that
goes along with ptsd and there are some
tools
uh with dbt that you can use in the
moment to solve soothe to remove
yourself from a place that's dangerous
and having a family member or a therapy
partner remind you of these
safe skills is important when you're so
overwhelmed that you can't readily pull
from your brain these techniques that
worked before and
they learned this by either going to
therapy
with the person that has ptsd or
working with the therapist working with
a therapist okay so they can't
go on youtube and just learn some ptsd
coping skills these are very specific
types of skills learned in therapy
your spouse is affected with ptsd and is
in treatment
how do you have that conversation with
your kids
that can be really difficult because in
some cases the child
can be traumatized we talked about how
one of the symptoms of ptsd is that
hyperarousal that irritability that
reactivity
and sometimes that can be very scary for
children
they will hear yelling and screaming and
they don't understand
or the parent can really believe that
they're dying and
behave as if oh my gosh i'm going to die
or say that
and that's traumatizing for that child
they may think my my dad my mom
they're going to die and remember you
don't have to necessarily
experience life-threatening situations
yourself you can
if you truly believe that someone that
you know or someone close to you is
going to die
that itself can be considered one of the
triggers for ptsd so in some cases
you're treating the whole family
yes it is important to remember
that just because somebody else
is going through something difficult
doesn't mean you
should or can stop taking care of
yourself
getting care for yourself treatment for
yourself only makes you that much better
of a supporter any final thoughts on
triggers and tips for supporters
who know someone's who is in treatment
for ptsd you know i
i hate to say this but like everyone can
benefit from therapy and like when
families hear that they're like well you
want my sibling the sibling uh
my other child she's not the one that
experiences trauma
she is siblings are close and or you
know if the parent
is the one that the partner is the one
experiencing the trauma the kids are
also part of it
yeah so i think everyone would benefit
from having just even like a check-in
of course you know they may not end up
having a long relationship with a
therapist but
it's worth it to see if there's
something there that needs to be
addressed and supported