Gift From Within - PTSD Resources for Survivors and Caregivers

• Military and Substance Abuse
• Trauma Addiction: Safety and Stabilization for the Addicted Survivor of Trauma
• Don't Make it Worse! Use of Alcohol or Drugs After Trauma
• Secret Diet Disasters of Trauma Survivors

• Trauma and the Post-Institutionalized Child - Adoption and Trauma Related issues

• Surviving the Crash: Stress Reactions of Motor Vehicle Accident Victims
• The Emotional Toll of Motor Vehicle Accidents on Truck Drivers

• Supporting Our Soldiers-PTSD Info For Chaplains
• Reintegration & Readjustment Program For Iraqi Veterans: for officers returning from the war in Iraq.
• Cop Talk: Beating the Holiday Blues
• The Echoes of Violence in The Police Family
• POLICE SUICIDE: Understanding Grief & Loss
• Confidentiality in Counseling: What Police Officers Need To Know
• Police Officers: Traumatic Spending: A Reaction to Critical Incident Stress
• Paramedics and Burnout: Coping and Prevention Suggestions

• On Being Invisible In The Mental Health System
• The Nature of the Child
• Traumatic Stress and Children
• Stress Responses in Sexual Trauma Victims and in Others Experiencing Overwhelming Events
• CHILDHOOD AND ADULT SEXUAL VICTIMIZATION: Living in the Aftermath of Transgression and Quest for Restoration of the Self

• Nurses and Compassion Fatigue
• Preventing Compassion Fatigue: Power Point Presentation
• Professional Quality of Life Manual (ProQOL)
• Understanding and Preventing Compassion Fatigue - A Handout - For Professionals
• Supporting Our Soldiers - PTSD Info For Chaplains
• The Art and Science of Caring for Others without Forgetting Self-Care
• Compassion Fatigue: An Introduction
• The MASTERS Process: Transforming Your Career and Life
• Compassion Fatigue: A Crucible Of Transformation
• When Helping Hurts
• Vicarious Trauma in Attorneys
• Bosnia's Death Highway: My Personal Story of Trauma Work, Compassion Fatigue and Hope.

• Domestic Violence and the Gay Community: A Right to Peace and Safety
• I Was Raped: A Survivor explores an accusation that has divided the Spelman and Morehouse family
• Treating People of Varied Cultures: Honoring the Individual in Context
• Surviving and Thriving: Understanding Asian Americans' Experiences of Relationship Trauma
• Latinas in Pursuit of Healing: Cultural Implications for Counseling Sexually Abused Latinas
• I Will Survive: The African-American Guide to Healing from Sexual Assault and Abuse (excerpt)
• Trauma in American Indian Communities
• Challenges and Obstacles in Treating Mentally Ill African American Patients

• Military Sexual Trauma
• Legal Tools for Survivors of Sexual Assault
• Art Exhibit: A Woman's Journey from Domestic Violence Victim to Survivor
• Acquaintance Rape: A Matter of Consent
• I Will Survive: The African-American Guide to Healing from Sexual Assault and Abuse (excerpt)
• Rape Trauma Syndrome: The Journey to Healing Belongs to Everyone
• Peaceful Heart: A Woman's Journey of Healing After Rape
• Dealing with Domestic Abuse: Lessons from Kathy
• The Ties That Bind Captive to Captor- Stockholm Syndrome
• Understanding the Victims of Spousal Abuse

• Will Trauma Grief Counseling Help?
• Exorcising Ghosts: The Counting Method and Traumatic Death Imagery
• Help for the Holidays: Ideas for the Bereaved
• Understanding Different Grieving Patterns in Your Family
• Sudden Loss - Impact of a grief-crisis intervention immediately after a sudden violent death on the survivor's ability to cope.
• Recovery From Unnatural Death
• Psychotherapy of Bereavement After Homicide: Be Offensive

• The Emotional Impact of Reporting War at Home
• A Primer on Covering Victims
• PTSD 101 for Journalists
• Three Acts of Trauma News
• Survivors and the Media

• Domestic Violence Against Men: Bryan's Story
• Suffering in Silence: The Problem of Male Sexual Abuse
• Wounded Boys/Heroic Men: A Man's Guide to Recovering from Child Abuse

• PTSD and Family Members: The Hidden Face of PTSD
• Partners with PTSD

• Understanding Complex Trauma, Complex Reactions, and Treatment Approaches
• Major Depressive Disorder: A Condition That Frequently Co-Occurs with PTSD
• Exposure To A Traumatic Event Does Not Automatically Put A Person On A Path To Develop PTSD: The Importance of Protective Factors To Promote Resiliency
• Applying the Brakes - Traumatic Memories
• Finding a Good Lawyer for Your Traumatized Client
• Posttraumatic Therapy
• The Counting Method for Ameliorating Traumatic Memories
• Stress Responses in Sexual Trauma Victims and in Others Experiencing Overwhelming Events Helpful Strategies for Self, Children, Supporters, and What Trauma Therapists Really Do
• The Counting Method as Exposure Therapy: Revisions and Case Examples
• Trauma & Recovery: an REBT Perspective
• Listening to the Lessons of Survivors. Sharing their Truths and their Lessons

• Life After Breast Cancer: Surviving & Thriving
• How to Improve Strength and Mobility without Really Exercising
• Exercise and Aging
• Fibromyalgia: What It Is And How To Manage It
• How Exercise Helps Symptoms Of PTSD
• Menopause Is A Natural Part Of A Woman's Lifecycle

• Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and the Workplace What Employers and Coworkers Need to Know

• Healing the Invisible Wound
• Trauma Survivors Share Tips for Therapists Dealing with Trauma
• Open Letter to Trauma Survivors
• How to Choose a Trauma Therapist: Therapy for Post-Traumatic Stress (PTSD) and Dissociative Conditions
• Helping A Person Who Is Suicidal
• S.V.'s Story: My Survival From Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
• Survivors, How To Write Your Personal History
• Finding The Right Therapist For You
• Anniversary Reactions: A Survivor's Guide on How to Cope
• Healing from Shame Associated with Traumatic Events
• Ninth Grader Interviews Frank Ochberg on PTSD
• How to Cope with PTSD and the Holiday Season

• Cultivating Resiliency in Youth
• Cultivating Resiliency
• The Resilient Child

• Helping Traumatized Children at School
• Inner City Children of Trauma: Urban Violence Traumatic Stress Response Syndrome (U-VTS) and Therapists' Responses
• School Disaster: Planning and Initial Interventions
• Bound By A Trauma Called Columbine

• Posttraumatic Stress, Mental Health Professionals, and the Clergy: A Need for Collaboration, Training, and Research
• How to Provide Spiritually Sensitive Trauma Care
• "Trauma and Spirituality"

• Guilt Following Traumatic Events

• Utilizing First Person Story with Trauma Survivors in Bosnia and Sri Lanka: Metaphors create a symbolic congruence that is 'inclusive' and universal across cultures
• GFW Founder, Frank Ochberg spent a week in Sri Lanka Helping
• Hurricane Opens Trauma Wounds
• 9-11 ANNIVERSARY REACTIONS: An interview with Frank Ochberg, M.D.
• Victims of Disasters: Helping People Recover From Acute Distress to Healing and Integration
• Terrorism: September 11, 2001. "Trauma, Grief, and Recovery"

• Finding Hope after Head Injury and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder
• Military and Substance Abuse
• Military Sexual Trauma
• Suicide and the Military
• Military PTSD Family Resources
• Will Trauma Grief Counseling Help?
• Preventing Compassion Fatigue: What Veteran Spouse/Partner Caregivers Need to Know
• Keeping Your Relationship Healthy When Your Veteran Spouse/Partner Is Injured
• Issues and Answers on the Home Front
• Veterans and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: A Conversation with Dr Frank Ochberg
• Post Traumatic Stress and the Military
• There's Nothing Wrong With Me!
  

• Participants will be able to list the characteristics of resiliency.
  
• Participants will be able understand the importance of strengthening resiliency.
  
• Participants will know how to strengthen resiliency.
  
• Participants will know how to build heart.

• Resourcefulness
  
• Ability to attract and use support
  
• Curiosity and intellectual mastery
  
• Compassion - with detachment
  
• Conviction of one's right to survive
  
• Ability to remember and invoke images of good and sustaining figures
  
• Ability to be in touch with affects, not denying or suppressing major affects as they arise
  
• Goal to live for
  
• Vision of the possibility and desirability of restoration civilized moral order
  
• The need and ability to help others
  
• Ability to conceptualize
  
• An affective repertory
  
• Altruism toward others
  
• Traumatic Helplessness - Learned helpfulness
  
• "Heart" is an essential component in having resiliency
  
• "Heart" is also known as "Indomitable Fighting Spirit"
  
• Developing a sense of Atman

• Development of muscular strength
  
• Use it or loose it.
  
• The same applies to another type of strength is emotional strength and is known as resiliency.
  
• Unfortunately, we see the same lack of proactive development of muscular strength in the development of emotional strength.

• Community organization efforts are producing promising results regarding various health indicators, although it is difficult to conduct experiments that permit traditional scientific criteria to be applied
  

  +Ability to attract and use support+

• Communities with social infrastructure have less trauma generated incidents (e.g. violence) as the social infrastructure prevents promulgation of such behaviors.
  
• Sampson RJ, Raudenbush SW, & Earls F. Neighborhoods and violent crime: A multilevel study of collective efficacy. Science 277: 918-924, August 15, 1997

• Not having access to lead screening leads children to have brain damage

  +This compromises the ability to conceptualize+

  +This compromises the ability for curiosity and intellectual mastery+

• Low levels of parental warmth, acceptance, and affection and low levels of cohesion and high levels of conflict and hostility have been associated with a lack of support

  +Ability to remember and invoke imagesof good and sustaining figures+

• Improving intra family relations can increase the supportive environment
  
• closeness
  
• positive statements
  
• communication clarity
  
• emotional cohesion

  +Ability to remember and invoke images of good and sustaining figures+

• A sense of connectedness
  
• Feeling satisfaction from being connected to valued people, places or things
  
• A sense of models
  
• Models that they can use make sense of the world.
  
• A sense of uniqueness
  
• Acknowledging and respecting the qualities and characteristics about themselves that are special and different
  
• A sense of power
  
• A feeling of competence to do what they must.

  +Ability to conceptualize+

  +Curiosity and intellectual mastery+

  +Resourcefulness+

• Family-oriented intervention to change parenting style and practices can increase a sense of social support
  
• Increase predictability
  
• Parental monitoring of children
  
• Decrease negative parenting methods

  +Vision of the possibility and desirability of restoration civilized moral order+

  +Ability to be in touch with affects, not denying or suppressing major affects as they arise+

• Communication
  
• Leadership Skills
  
• Problem Solving
  
• Resource Management
  
• Ability to Remove Barriers to Success
  
• Planning Ability
  
• Parenting practices referring to the methods and styles of parenting or the goal directed behaviors through which parents perform their parental duties, designed to control and socialize the child have influence on resiliency in children.
  
• Discipline
  
• Use of positive parenting
  
• Effectiveness of discipline
  
• Avoidance of discipline
  
• Supervision and monitoring of the child
  
• Extent of involvement
  
• Knowledge of child's activities and whereabouts
  
• Family interventions that promote resiliency combine behavioral parent training techniques with other intervention components based in family systems theory that are designed to improve family relations.

  +Ability to attract and use support+
  +The need and ability to help others+
  +Altruism toward others+
  +Compassion - with detachment+
  +An affective repertory+

• Transform Traumatic Helplessness into Learned Helpfulness

  +The need and ability to help others+
  +Altruism toward others+
  +Compassion - with detachment+

  
  

• If children can be identified immediately after suffering a traumatic stressor and helped to cope with that stressor they will be less prone to engage in self destructive behaviors such as drug abuse, school failure, unsafe sex, and violence.
  
• If a child is traumatized and are not treated for years, then even after they successfully obtain insight oriented psychotherapy and they "see the light", they will still have years of negative behavioral habits that will be relatively ingrained and hard to extinguish without the above.

• Building and Improving "Heart"

  +Goal to live for+
  +Conviction of one's right to survive+

  
  

• The concept is a simple one.
  
• By encouraging individuals to "go the extra mile", a person can practice calling up emotional reserves until they trust they have a stockpile of conviction.
  
• Building "heart" in individuals is a preventive public health strategy designed to inoculate against the potentially negative effects of stress and trauma.
  
• Heart can be built in sports or other spiritual endeavors.

• Everyone has a sense of "self" or "be-ing".
  
• An "internal observer" which is unchanging and eternal.
  
• Awareness of this "be-ing" begins after the development of abstract thinking.
  
• Some know it as "spirit", "place", "ego", "soul", etc.

• Patients exposed to violence and trauma experience acute and chronic physiologic responses to their experiences.

• Catecholamine system
  
• Hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis
  
• Hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis
  
• Neuropsychiatric status

• Increased responsivity of the sympathetic nervous system that is detectable under conditions of stress.
  
• Behavioral impulsivity and cognitive distortions
  
• Persistent physiological hyper arousal and hyperactivity
  
• Increased muscle tone
  
• A low-grade increase in temperature
  
• An increased startle response
  
• Profound sleep disturbances
  
• Affect regulations problems
  
• Generalized (or specific) anxiety
  
• Abnormalities in cardiovascular regulation

• Chronic stress is adapted to activating a negative feedback loop that causes:
  
• A decreased resting glucocorticoid levels
  
• Decreased glucocorticoid secretion in response to subsequent stress
  
• Increased concentration of glucocorticoid receptors in the hippocampus
  
• Blunted fluctuations in their daily salivary cortisol levels
  
• Lower baseline cortisol levels
  
• Greater afternoon suppression of salivary cortisol by dexamethasone
  
• Higher morning cortisol levels
  
• Major neuroendocrine disturbances (especially in the corticosteroid and thyroid functions)

• The hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal (HPG) system is the nervous system/sex glandular system
  
• There is some evidence that the impact on the HPG system may have an impact on hormones (e.g. cortisol, testosterone, dihydroepiandrosterone, and androstenedione) that have behavioral effects in males and females.

• High levels of circulating glucocorticoids have a significant effect on memory which is thought to be a function of the fact that sustained activation of the glucocorticoid system under conditions of prolonged stress eventually leads to cell death in the hippocampus.
  
• Shalev (1997) - PTSD - "biopsychosocial trap" - permanent alteration of neurobiological processes
  
• hyperarousal and excessive stimulus discrimination
  
• acquisition of conditioned fear responses to trauma-related stimuli
  
• altered cognitive schemata
  
• social apprehension.
  
• If physiologic responses can be conditioned to be able to tolerate a wider range of distress, traumatized individuals might not fall in to the biopsychosocial trap

• Negative biopsychosocial experiences stress changes neuroendocrine responses in the body
  
• Positive biopsychosocial experiences changes neuroendocrine responses in the body.

• Psychoneuroendocrinology
  
• Fat burning exercises
  
• Increase endurance without undue cardiovascular stress
  
• Improved immunologic competence
  
• Improved relaxation capacity

• Depending of the time of day, the body has different sources of energy.
  
• At 6:00AM the body's short term source of energy - glycogen which is stored in the liver - is depleted from the lack of food intake while the person is sleeping.
  
• As a result, the body releases corticotrophin (ACTH) a hormone from the pituitary which converts protein and fat into sugar that can be used for energy until the first meal.
  
• This process is called gluconeogenesis and is carried out when ACTH goes to the adrenal gland causing it to produce cortisol.
  
• Accordingly, 6:00AM is the best time to do exercises to burn fat and redistribute proteins in the body.
  
• In addition, it is useful to have cortisol, a youthful, energizing hormone, to be actively circulating throughout the body in the morning.
  
• ACTH is produced from "big ACTH" which is composed of ACTH and the body's own form of morphine (beta lipotrophin which contains beta-endorphin and enkephalin).
  
• When ACTH is formed the beta-endorphin also is released in the body - causing an increased tolerance to pain, temperature changes, etc.

• Although the exercises are very slow and do not cause extreme respiratory or cardiovascular stress, they result in strength and endurance by virtue of them training the body to move in "one piece" and to use fat as a source of energy.

• With aging the immune function undergoes adverse changes.
  
• T cells, which have a central role in cellular immunity, show the largest age-related differences.
  
• Thymus involution is the apparent underlying cause resulting in increased incidence of malignancy, infectious disease, and autoimmune disorders with age.
  
• Habitual physical activity may enhance activity of macrophages, natural killer cells, lympokine activated killer cells, neutrophils and regulating cytokines increasing resistance to viral infection and preventing the formation of malignant cells.
  
• Habitual physical activity may check certain aspects of age-related decline in T cell function - e.g. reduced mitogenesis and decreases in the production of certain types of cytokine.
  
• Data suggests the incidence and mortality rates for certain types of cancer are lower among active subjects.
  
• Athletes are not clinically immunodeficient, yet endurance athletes are at increased risk for illness especially upper respiratory tract infection.
  
• In athletes, neutrophils appear to be down regulated, and this may alter resistance to illness.
  
• Down regulation of neutrophils function by limiting chronic inflammation from exercise.
  
• In theory, moderate exercise should help to reverse the adverse effects of stress upon the immune system by increasing the production of endocrine hormones and causing less accumulation of autoreactive immune cells by enhancing the programmed cell death.

• In theory, Chi Kung is particularly suited to reversing the adverse effects of stress
  
• The exercises are timed with the circadian rhythms of key endocrine hormones
  
• The exercises are physically stimulating the areas in which the thymus gland, the adrenal glands, and gonads are located.

• Franz Alexander made observations about "expressive innervations"
  
• When the mind is in one emotional state or another, the expression of this emotional state can be observed in the breathing

• E.g. deep sighing respiration as seen in depressed individuals
  
• E.g. panting respiration as seen in panicked individuals
  
• E.g. holding the breath as seen in concentrating individuals
  
• E.g. irregular breathing as seen in upset individuals
  
• E.g. deep inspiration as seen in surprised individuals, etc.

• Just as the mental state of an individual influences the person's breathing patterns, similarly the breathing patterns can have an influence on the person's mental state.
  

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