June is PTSD Awareness Month, and one of the most important things to understand about posttraumatic stress is that it often doesn't look the way people expect. In military service members, veterans, first responders, emergency medical personnel, and others who work in high-pressure environments, PTSD frequently doesn't look like falling apart. It can look like competence.
This season on Practical for Your Practice, it seems each of us has had at least one super-fan moment—and in this episode, it was my turn. Dr. Sheila Rauch joined us for an incredible conversation, and I’ll admit it: I was starstruck. Sheila brings a brilliant mix of clinical expertise, innovation, and warmth to the field of trauma treatment, and we had so much fun talking shop (and even talking vomit—yep, you’ll have to listen to understand).
In the world of treatment for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) there seems to be an insatiable desire for new and novel treatments, and there is a frequent refrain that “We need effective treatments for PTSD!”
Even die-hard proponents of evidence-based psychotherapy (EBP) such as myself acknowledge that it comes with challenges. Of course, there are some patients who are uninterested in EBPs for a variety of reasons. But even motivated and engaged patients don’t always complete treatment or gain significant benefit. Research has long focused on how we can improve outcomes and completion rates for “non responders” and “dropouts.”
In our first episode of season 4, we tackle one of the top concerns we hear in our PTSD EBP workshops and consultation… “But what if my client dissociates?!”. If this has been on your list of clinical worries, worry no more! In this episode we are joined by one of CDP’s PTSD experts, Dr. Kelly Chrestman to dig into what is dissociation (and what isn’t)? What is its function? How can we best assess it? When is it likely to show up? AND most importantly, what providers can do to manage it in the context of their EBP work!