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Gift From Within - PTSD Questions & Answers with Frank Ochberg, M.D.

PTSD: Definition of PTSD How Common, Who Gets PTSD? Is PTSD a normal event? Does PTSD Affect The Brain? Duration Pregnancy Delayed Onset PTSD PTSD Tip Sheet for your Doctor Medications for PTSD Distinguishing PTSD from BPD Generalized Anxiety Disorder Can the Wounds of PTSD Heal? Complex/Chronic PTSD: CPTSD Explanation Long Term Prognosis & Complex PTSD PTSD vs. CPTSD Managing Past Intense Feelings Overcoming Complex PTSD PTSD Symptoms: Anger and Brain Injury Anger Flashbacks Loneliness Feelings Of Loss And Sense Of Self Anxiety Numbing Re-Traumatization Differences bet. Depression, Dysthemia, Major Depression Depression vs. Sadness and Grief Biological Depression Memory Loss Triggers and Body Sensations PTSD & Facial Tics Emotional & Physical Reactions Delayed Stress Response after Experiencing a Shock Can A False Memory Happen? Differences Between Hypervigilance and Hyperarousal Negativity & Pessismism after Trauma PTSD/PTSI Insomnia: Not Being Able To Sleep PTSD/PTSI & Psychosis Relationships: Peer Support Issues Explaining PTSD To Children False Memory Toxic Family Of Origin Protection From Unwanted Contact Preventing Intergenerational PTSD Numbing in Male Survivors of Domestic Violence How To Increase Social Support Caregivers/Partners with PTSD: Starting a Conversation about PTSD Both Partners with PTSD & its Complications Fiancé Doesn't Believe in Therapy Managing PTSD After Partner Pushes Too Hard Childhood Abuse: Emotional Abuse Childhood Trauma & Intrusive Images Revisiting The Scene Of Trauma And Abuse Gaslighting Stockholm Syndrome & Child Abuse Survivors Can a Child be Born Depressed Childhood Survivors and Being a Parent Work Issues: Disability Letter for Attorney-Sample Low Stress Jobs Doctor's letter for Employer Sample Dealing with Co-Workers Job Searching with PTSD Recovery: Frank Ochberg's Color Wheel of Positive Emotion Triggers Rebuilding Self Esteem Life After Trauma Coping During The Holidays Substance Abuse Improving A Damaged Self-Concept Explaining PTSD is a Responsibility Grief & Loss from a Tragic Death The Trauma Bond & Forgiveness Sudden Panic, Anxiety & Flashbacks Stockholm Syndrome, Trauma Bond and Undue Influence Therapy: Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) Inadequate Therapy When to End Therapy Repeating Your Trauma Story PTSD Symptoms After The Therapy Hour Exposure Therapy Service/Therapy Dogs & PTSD ECT (Electro-Convulsive-Therapy) Bipolar & ECT Therapy: An Interview Telling Trauma Story to Therapist PTSD Client Expectations from Therapy Sessions Veterans & PTSD: PTSD A Disease Seasonal PTSD & Anniversary Reaction. Emotional Injury Therapy Sessions Active Listening for Moms and Friends Military Sexual Assault Professionals: Compassion Fatigue Consequences Of Emotional Numbing School Teachers And PTSD Using The Counting Method with Clients Helping Clients with PTSD Other Conditions: Borderline Personality Disorder Social Phobia Dissociation Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) Cutting & Self Harm Link between PTSD, BPD and Bi-Polar Somatization Disorder or Briquet's Syndrome Stockholm Syndrome & Child Abuse Survivors Dealing with Psychopaths & Narcissists

PTSD Questions & Answers with Joyce Boaz & Dr. Frank Ochberg, M.D. Read "Survivor Psalm" by Frank Ochberg

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Therapy: PTSD Symptoms After The Therapy Hour. Q: Dear Frank, How does one keep their mood up after a therapeutic session when they have been talking to their therapist about very serious issues like child abuse, victimization and/or sexual assault? A: Dear Joyce, Good question! Just today I received a call from a relatively new patient who seemed upbeat after we had our last session, but then felt terrible several hours later. His previous job placed him in several near-fatal circumstances and two years later he still has vivid flashbacks, nightmares and feelings that he finds difficult to express. We work effectively on these PTSD symptoms during the therapy hour. Both of us experience gratifying progress. But he, more than once, has that after-therapy-let-down which you raise in your question. I don't think it comes from being "triggered" during the time with me. I do think our time together is experienced as connected, collegial, and hopeful. But afterwards his sense of security and of personal optimism has some ups and downs. Often he has an awkward interaction with his spouse or a co-worker and his feeling of being understood and accepted is shattered. Perhaps the contrast of feeling connected to his therapist then feeling misunderstood or criticized by a significant other ushers in a deep sense of abandonment. In other patients, the absence of a significant other is felt acutely - but the emotion is more than mere loneliness. This profound aloneness is like the awful feeling a very young child has when lost for the first time. Or like the feeling a soldier has when badly wounded, going into shock, and he or she cries out, "Mama." It is a reflex. It is a return to a state of infantile aloneness. When I spent time in Borneo studying orangutans, I heard the pitiful "lost call" of the infant orangutan when separated from its mother. Our primate ancestors have separation anxiety, too! When they are attached, they are really attached, holding on to mother's fur 40 feet above ground on a tree limb. To become un-attached is to fall to grave injury or death on the forest floor. PTSD recreates in us many of these primitive emotions - being physically endangered; holding on to a source of sustenance; experiencing a powerful sensation of separation and abandonment that is hard to explain and is often a source of great embarrassment when it is explained. So, in this situation, I review with my patient the biology of attachment and the fact that a feeling of abandonment when attachment is needed but broken is understandable, normal, and part of the neurology of primates. It is basic, fundamental biology. I try to coach the person into accepting this sensation (alone, abandoned) as a feeling, not prophesy of future separation and nothing to be ashamed of. The feeling does pass. It may be mitigated by forms of self-help (paradoxically, this may be a good time to be alone and not to seek attachment to a family member or friend who cannot fully appreciate the situation). The self-help could include web-based reminders of how PTSD works, of soothing or diverting images, or of inspirational articles and poetry. There may be other sensations -- other than separation and abandonment -- that arise after finishing a therapy session. But this feeling of aloneness is worth recognizing. It is common. So in a very meaningful sense, you are not alone in sensing aloneness. You are part of a large family of fellow travelers who have survived trauma and are weathering its inevitable aftershocks. Tweet Was this helpful to you? If so, please consider supporting our work.

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