The PTSD Solution: The Truth About Your Symptoms and How to Heal

by Alan D. Wolfelt PhD

Overview

A new approach to understanding PTSD as a form of grief rather than a medical disorder
 
Have you ever felt that something essential was missing from your post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) treatment options? If you suffer from PTSD, you know the problem is complex, but what you probably don’t know—and what the medical establishment isn’t telling you—is that post-traumatic stress is not fundamentally a medical disorder but rather a form of grief. Your body, mind, and soul experienced tremendous loss, and to fully integrate the many losses into your ongoing life, you must explore and express your necessary grief. In other words, you must mourn. This groundbreaking book reveals a new approach to understanding PTSD and its debilitating symptoms. With compassion and insight, it affirms the nature and severity of your experience while providing you with a step-by-step plan to transcend it. A full review of traditional medical treatments for PTSD are presented and included as part of the healing plan. Whether your PTSD is severe or more subtle, whether your traumatic experience was recent or in the distant past, this book unlocks the secret that will finally allow you to once again live and love fully.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781617222269
Publisher:	Companion Press
Publication date:	10/30/2015
Pages:	176
Sales rank:	837,653
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Alan D. Wolfelt, PhD, is a speaker, a grief counselor, and the director of the Center for Loss and Life Transition. He is the author of numerous books, including Companioning the Bereaved, Companioning the Grieving Child, Healing Your Traumatized Heart, and Understanding Your Grief, among many other bestselling titles on healing in grief. He lives in Fort Collins, Colorado.

Table of Contents

Foreword 1

Preface 5

Introduction 9

You deserve compassionate care 10

You are a whole person 11

The prevalence and history of PTSD 11

It's time to reconsider our thinking about post-traumatic stress 13

Part 1 What If? 15

What if you do not have an illness or disorder but instead an injury? 15

Traumatic brain injury 16

What if your symptoms are normal and necessary responses to this injury? 18

What if post-traumatic stress is really a form of grief? 20

Things we grieve over after a traumatic event: Primary and secondary losses 21

Part 2 The Grief We Call PTSD 25

Moral injury and PTSD 26

Diagnostic criteria for PTSD 27

What is grief? 29

Shock, numbness, denial, and disbelief 29

Disorganization, confusion, searching, and yearning 30

Anxiety, panic, and fear 31

Explosive emotions 31

Guilt and regret 32

Sadness and depression 33

Relief 33

The fear factor 34

Fear in traumatic grief 34

Fear in uncomplicated grief 40

PTSD versus grief 43

Traumatic grief 45

Traumatic grief as a form of complicated grief 47

Care-eliciting symptoms 47

Ten risk factors for complicated grief 49

1 The specific circumstances of the loss 49

2 Your personality, including the ability to understand and access emotions (emotional intelligence) 50

3 In the case of the death of someone loved, your relationship with the person who died 51

4 Your access to and use of support systems 51

5 Your cultural/ethnic background 52

6 Your religious/spiritual/philosophical background and current worldview 52

7 Other stressors in your life 52

8 Your upbringing and unwritten family rules 53

9 Your participation in meaningful rituals 53

10 Losses that tend to be stigmatized 54

What complicated grief can look like 55

Absent or delayed grief 55

Distorted grief 56

Converted grief 56

Chronic grief 58

Part 3 Mourning as "Treatment" 61

First, seek safety and comfort 63

Your grief in action: mourning 64

The six central needs of mourning 66

Mourning Need 1 Acknowledge the reality of what happened as well as the losses it created 66

Mourning Need 2 Feel the pain of the losses 68

Clean pain versus dirty pain 68

Chronic wallowing 71

Mourning Need 3 Remember the event 74

Mourning Need 4 Develop a new self-identity 78

Mourning Need 5 Search for meaning 79

Mourning Need 6 Receive and accept ongoing support from others 82

Finding a good counselor 85

The power of telling your story 86

Medical therapies for PTSD and how and when they support healthy mourning 89

Psychological debriefing 90

Early cognitive-behavioral interventions 90

Short-term cognitive behavioral therapy 91

Complementary therapies for traumatic grief 93

Drug therapy 94

EMDR 95

Psychosocial rehabilitation 96

Part 4 What Happens When You Don't Mourn Your Traumatic Grief 99

Symptoms of carried grief 100

Difficulties with trust and intimacy 100

Depression and negative outlook 101

Anxiety and panic attacks 103

Psychic numbing and disconnection 104

Irritability and agitation 104

Substance abuse, addictions, and eating disorders 105

Physical problems, real or imagined 106

Catch-up mourning for traumatic grief 107

A model for catch-up mourning 112

Step 1 Acknowledge carried grief 112

Carried grief self-inventory 114

Step 2 Overcome resistance to do the work 119

Step 3 Actively mourn the carried grief 121

Mourning Need 1 Acknowledge the reality of the loss(es) 123

Mourning Need 2 Feel the pain of the loss(es) 124

Mourning Need 3 Remember the losses and their aftermath 124

Mourning Need 4 Develop a new self-identity 125

Mourning Need 5 Search for meaning 125

Mourning Need 6 Receive and accept ongoing support from others 126

Step 4 Integrate the carried grief 126

Part 5 Believe in Your Capacity to Heal 129

Setting your intention to heal 130

No reward for speed 132

Caring for yourself as you heal 133

The physical realm 134

The cognitive realm 137

The emotional realm 138

The social realm 140

The spiritual realm 143

Reconciling your traumatic grief 147

Closure: a misnomer 149

The transformative nature of grief 149

A Final Word 153