Welcome to my blog! I’ll be talking about trauma and many ways to approach treating it. I’ll spend the first few entries answering questions that I’ve received from people inquiring about how to handle various trauma-related situations.

The main reason for creating this blog is to spread the word to professionals and first responders who work with people who have experienced trauma that healing is possible.

A traumatic incident or series of traumas does not necessarily doom a person to a life of pain and suffering. Many people, including me, who have a history of trauma have been able to heal from the aftermath of that trauma. While we will never be the same as if we had not had these experiences, our lives can be rich and rewarding.

The Chinese character for the term “crisis” combines the notions of danger and opportunity.

When people have experienced trauma, they have been in a crisis and can be helped to find the opportunities for growth within the traumatic situations.

I hope that you will find this blog helpful and will leave comments as well as questions and concerns you would like to see addressed.

Hope Makes Healing Possible!

Patricia Sherman, Ph.D., LCSW

Most people find that some type of therapy is important in healing from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). There are a variety of therapeutic methods that have been found useful.

Cognitive-behavioral therapy can be particularly helpful in dealing with flashbacks; it teaches relaxation and ways to change thoughts that are troubling.

Some people have found that newer treatments, such as eye-movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) and emotional freedom therapy (EFT) help with more immediate relief of symptoms.

Psychodynamic psychotherapy has also been found to be extremely helpful, often in conjunction with some of the other types, particularly if the symptoms are a result of childhood trauma.

When children are traumatized, they often become frozen in time developmentally. While they mature physically, there may be some emotional and social areas in which they have difficulty.

Psychodynamic treatment can aid in healing those early wounds and help the individual make up for what was lost.

In addition to those treatments already mentioned, some people find medications helpful to alleviate the anxiety and/or depression that you ma be experiencing.

Many people also find that becoming part of a support group is also helpful. The local social service agency or blue pages in the telephone book will likely have some leads.

Additionally, some people are helped by becoming involved in things that bring meaning to their life. Taking a class, working on crafts, and/or doing some volunteer work may help someone get through the days in a meaningful way as they work to resolve the PTSD symptoms.

Hope Makes Healing Possible!

Patricia Sherman, Ph.D., LCSW

People often ask how to get past a trauma.

The natural human tendency is to try to ignore or forget both the trauma and its aftermath.

Unfortunately, trying to do that will generally create more difficulty.

The best way past it is to go through the healing process. Often that involves talking about and, perhaps, re-experiencing some of the pain.

True healing comes from rooting out the causes of the pain, not from covering it over.

It’s a bit like healing from third degree burns. The top layers of skin form fairly quickly, but they then need to be removed in order to allow the lower layers to heal. Healing must come from the inner layers so that infection does not cause serious complications.

This debriding (removal of the top layers of skin) is extremely painful. But without going through that pain, the body cannot truly heal.

Healing from emotional wounds often must follow a similar path. There are some therapeutic techniques, such as EMDR (eye-movement desensitization and reprocessing) and EFT (emotional freedom therapy) that can help one go through this process more quickly and with less pain.

I’m considering developing a series of teleseminars dealing with several different ways to heal from PTSD. These teleseminars would include experts on EMDR, EFT, psychodynamic and cognitive-behavioral approaches.

Please let me know if this would interest you and which specific intervention techniques you would like me to include.

Hope Makes Healing Possible

Patricia Sherman, Ph.D., LCSW

Vicarious traumatization may be prevented by ensuring that volunteers have adequate training and ongoing supervision. Knowing ahead of time what to expect can help volunteers develop coping strategies before coming face-to-face with difficult situations.

Being told that emotional reactions are to be expected and are normal can go a long way toward freeing up the volunteers to acknowledge what they are feeling and ask for help.

If the volunteers are aware of the potential for developing vicarious traumatization and are educated about the signs and symptoms, they will be more likely to be willing to take a break from their volunteer activities to allow time for decompression and rest.

The supervisors of volunteers have a huge responsibility for screening, training, and providing support on an ongoing basis. Regular group and/or individual meetings between the volunteers and their supervisors can provide for debriefings and evaluation of the volunteers’ state of emotional strength.

While it may be tempting in disaster situations to utilize anyone who volunteers, it’s essential to assess the ability of all volunteers to engage in working with those in crisis. It’s also vital to monitor the physical and emotional health of those volunteers.

Teaching and reinforcing the necessity for self-care is an essential aspect of good supervision.

Treatment of vicarious trauma in volunteers will be the subject of my next blog entry.

Hope Makes Healing Possible!

Patricia Sherman, Ph.D., LCSW

The primary treatment for those volunteers who are experiencing vicarious traumatization is to temporarily have them refrain from the volunteer activities that precipitated the condition. It may be very difficult to help volunteers acknowledge that they are experiencing vicarious traumatization, but it’s essential that their supervisor and/or colleagues help them recognize what’s going on.

If they continue to volunteer, their effectiveness will likely be compromised as will their future ability to help. Burnout is the inevitable outcome of unrelieved vicarious traumatization. Once volunteers have reached that point, they will be unable to be helpful and they greatly increase the risk to themselves of physical and/or emotional disorders.

If vicarious traumatization is caught early, a brief break involving rest and recreation may be all that’s needed. If it has been allowed to progress, a longer period of recovery will likely be needed. During that time it will be important for the volunteers to address any of the unhealthy coping mechanisms they may have been utilizing. Treatment for substance abuse may be necessary.

A complete physical examination might well be called for to catch any physiological consequences of vicarious traumatization. Medication for anxiety and/or depression might be called for. Learning to spend time each day in activities geared toward physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual renewal can be helpful.

Eating and sleeping should be regulated before returning to volunteer activities. It might be possible to begin slowly, perhaps in areas not directly involved with people who are currently experiencing pain and distress. This can give the volunteers a sense of being helpful without compromising their well-being.

Being a volunteer can be an immensely rewarding endeavor. It’s essential that it not become a dangerous one as well.

Hope Makes Healing Possible!

Patricia Sherman, Ph.D., LCSW

Many people wonder how life can ever be the same again after a tragedy such as the collapse of the bridge in Minneapolis. While things will never be the same for people after having experienced such a tragedy, healing is possible and life can become meaningful once again.

Today I’m going to talk about how to handle the aftermath if one was on the bridge and survived. The next blog entry will address how to deal with having lost a loved one. Even if you weren’t directly affected by the bridge collapse, the principles I’ll discuss may be helpful to you should you or your loved ones be touched by difficult circumstances.

There are several steps to take if you were involved in a disaster:

• recognize that you will feel many emotions in the aftermath of this tragedy
• reduce expectations regarding functioning
• make and prioritize list of things that need to be done; i.e. submit insurance claims, make funeral arrangements, contact employer (whatever might be appropriate in each individual's circumstance
• ask for help for everyday chores and responsibilities
• allow time for just sitting
• find someone who will listen to you tell your story as many times as you would like
• talk if you feel like talking; be silent if that's what feels better
• be sure to attend to physical needs - eat healthy foods, get adequate rest
• seek out medical care if you have great difficulty with eating and/or sleeping
• medication may be helpful for a short time
• utilize whatever past coping skills you used in previous difficult times
• past traumas may be triggered by this one - seek out professional help to cope
• seek out spiritual support if this is meaningful to you
• remember that it is possible to get through this difficult time

Please let me know if there are any aspects of these items that you’d like me to clarify further.

Hope Makes Healing Possible!

Patricia Sherman, Ph.D., LCSW

No one is prepared for the phone call or the knock on the door telling you that a loved one has been killed. Your first response is generally denial – “It can’t be so; I just saw him this morning.” or “I just got off the phone with her.”

This denial leads to a kind of numbness which is nature’s way of protecting us from a reality we cannot yet process. The numbness can help us navigate through the initial days when decisions need to be made. It can be difficult to have some of these decisions taken away.

Often with a traumatic death, the coroner must keep the body until all necessary knowledge is gleaned. Even when the body is released, decisions must be made about whether or not to have a service and what should be included if you decide to have one.

It’s unlikely that you have already had an opportunity to discuss your loved ones wishes in this regard. If you have – and I recommend that you do – your decisions may be less difficult to make. If not, you will have to guess what he or she would have wanted and balance that against your own wishes as well as those of other family members.

Losing a loved one is perhaps one of the most painful experiences anyone will encounter in life, especially when the death is traumatic and unexpected. It can be even more complicated when the death becomes a national news story, such as the Minnesota bridge collapse.

It can be gratifying to have the outpouring of support that comes from so many knowing about the loss, but it can be extremely difficult to see it played out on television day after day.

While friends and family might be sensitive to knowing what you need and when it might be helpful to talk and when it would be more therapeutic to be silent, the media and well-wishers throughout the country cannot know that and may not be able to be respective of your needs.

The anniversary of 9/11 may trigger the feelings of fear and danger that originally occurred in 2001.

Even those who have been treated successfully for PTSD may find that their symptoms are re-awakened by the anniversary. This may be especially true as the images are replayed on television and over the internet. It can be difficult to avoid reminders of the traumatic event.

Some people may be surprised to have PTSD symptoms reactivated even when their original stressor was not 9/11. Whenever there is another trauma, either personal or societal, there may well be an emotional reaction similar to that which occurred in response to the initial trauma.