What is the Most Effective Treatment for Post Stress Traumatic Disorder (PTSD)?

The effects of a traumatic event cannot be underestimated as it significantly affects your quality of life. Trauma can be neurological, physiological, and emotional. You are most likely to be diagnosed with PTSD if these effects disrupt your daily life and normal functioning.

There are various treatments for trauma, including medication such as Ketamine therapy, Psychotherapy, also referred to as talk therapy, and neurological therapy, which focuses on the brain and the nervous systems. One of the most effective treatments for PTSD is Ketamine therapy available at California Center for Ketamine Therapy

Below we look at various therapies that are key in treating PTSD:

Ketamine Therapy

Ketamine therapy is one of the most effective PTSD treatment methods. The drug was approved by the United States  Food and Drugs Association (FDA)  in 1970  for treatment and relief of different symptoms associated with trauma. 

Ketamine therapy works by inducing a trance-like state causing dissociative effects, which are important in trauma treatment. The world health organization lists the medication as an essential medicine with results lasting 1-2 weeks. Ketamine also has anti-depressive, anesthetic, and analgesic effects and was first used during the Vietnam war to help American soldiers cope with traumatic experiences.

Clinical trials have found Intravenous infusion to be superior, with a low number of patients dropping out. It also has a greater remission rate and overall response. Infusion also leads to improved mood peaking at 24 hours. The effect lasts up to 7 days, with a significant minority claiming to have had the effects last up to a month or longer. The treatment decreases suicidal thoughts for up to three days. 

Moreover, maintenance therapy helps sustain the positive effects. This means a session twice a week or one session in two weeks will go a long way.

Psychotherapy

Besides Ketamine therapy, trauma-focused therapies are some of the most recommended treatments. The focus is on the traumatic event, its meaning, and related memories. An expert helps you process the traumatic event using different techniques. Some may involve talking, thinking, and visualizing the traumatic memory. The key treatments include Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT), Prolonged Exposure Therapy (PE), and Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT)

Cognitive behavior therapy aims at changing cognitive distortion, including thoughts, attitudes, beliefs, and behavior. It also aims at helping you improve emotional regulation and develop coping skills. It mainly incorporates two main methods:

Prolonged Exposure (PE)

A therapist equips you with the necessary skills that help you calm down and cope when you face a frightening or traumatic event. Prolonged Exposure is a  technique that revolves around rewiring unhealthy thinking patterns that follow a traumatic event. With their assistance, you identify various PTSD symptoms and how they manifest. The more you identify them, the easier it becomes to change your response which is mainly fear-based

The method also involves facing some of the things you may have avoided since the traumatic event occurred. For instance, a woman may decide never to have children again after traumatic childbirth. The therapist helps you highlight all the fears related to the traumatic event, from the least to the intense, then handle them based on the magnitude. After several sessions lasting between 8- 16 sessions, you can practice the newly learned coping skills.

Cognitive Process Therapy (CPT)

CPT enables the patient to revisit the traumatic event consciously. The process helps you face the pain and deal with it once and for all. The therapist guides you through evaluating emotions and beliefs generated from the event. It also involves further education about particular symptoms that point to PTSD. The process involves writing down details of the events and the impact they had on your belief systems. You also identify maladaptive behavior that interferes with recovery. Afterward, you write a detailed account of the event and read it in a therapy session. This helps process the emotions, breaks the avoidance pattern, and also helps you modify and clarify the long-held cognitive distortions.

Some therapists opt to ask the hard questions in what is referred to as Socrates’s dialogue. Just as in writing, these difficult questions help you process the pain and identify the behavior that keeps you stuck on that event. The final phase involves helping patients reinforce the taught skills and modify the various beliefs held towards traumatic events. CPT  mainly focuses on areas most affected by traumatic experiences, such as safety, trust, control, intimacy, and esteem.

Embracing available PTSD treatment cannot be overemphasized. Ketamine therapy provides the much-needed day-to-day relief which can be combined with psychotherapy for faster results.