Blog posts with the tag "Treatment"

Staff Perspective: Veterans and Surfing

By Laura Cho-Stutler  on 04.10.2017 9:19 am
Laura Cho-Stutler, Psy.D.

Depledge & Bird (2009) described the “blue gym” as an approach to promote well-being through being active in water environments such as surfing, kayaking, swimming, or walking along the beach. Being active can be stimulated by being near natural water. Stronger communities, stress reduction, and increased physical activity are three benefits from regular contact with natural environments. The blue gym helps us to connect to each other and the value of nature and our aquatic environments. There are some recent reports looking at the positive impact of surfing on PTSD symptoms for Veterans.

Staff Perspective: Preparing Spiritual Leaders to Provide Culturally-Informed Care

By Jenna Ermold  on 27.09.2017 10:41 am
Jenna Ermold, Ph.D.

While most of our CDP blogs focus on some aspect of military behavioral health to include understanding, evaluating and treating various psychological wounds of war and reintegration challenges, we don’t often consider and discuss the spiritual conflicts that arise for many of our military-connected clients. These spiritual wounds and needs can have a significant impact and often caring for those needs goes beyond the skillset of a behavioral health provider. A referral or concurrent care addressing both behavioral and spiritual health needs might be the best course of action. 

Staff Perspective: Are we “Pushers”, or “Adaptive” with patient understanding?

By Debra Nofziger  on 06.09.2017 10:50 am
Deb Nofziger, Psy.D.

I catch myself in a trap every so often, as my colleagues have, getting so caught up in selling the phases outlined in a treatment modality that I haven’t taken the time to hear the words from the patients’ perspective. And, working with an all military culture, I’ve found that when this happens I’ve usually lost the patient. I’ve used terms that simply don’t resonate with them and they are less willing to engage in whatever awesome thing I’m trying to get them to try.

Staff Perspective: My client says marijuana helps with PTSD symptoms. That can’t be the case… right?

By Josh Gray  on 30.08.2017 9:28 am
Josh Gray, Ph.D.

If a client proclaimed during a session that drugs with abuse potential are beneficial in managing PTSD symptoms, most therapists would identify this as cause for concern. When drugs with abuse potential are used in response to PTSD symptoms, they generally maintain or exacerbate the condition. For example, the classic client with alcohol use disorder and PTSD drinks to avoid trauma-related thoughts and reduce heightened arousal symptoms (e.g., hypervigilance).

Staff Perspective: Cracking the Code of Sleep Log Scoring

By Diana Dolan  on 16.08.2017 11:34 am

Providers of behavioral treatment of sleep disorders, such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I) or Brief Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (BBTI), need to score sleep logs efficiently and accurately to implement strategies. Moreover, we must teach patients how to score their own logs so that they in turn can implement sleep schedule adjustments without our guidance. It’s not surprising, then, that a frequent topic that arises in consultations concerns the use of sleep logs, specifically, learning steps for how to score logs and getting experience doing so.

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