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Looking Beyond PTSD: Are We Ready for Our Returning Heroes?
With an estimated 30,000 troops expected home from Afghanistan next month, the question that must be asked is: “Is the United States ready to accept these veterans back into society? Is it ready to help them reacclimate, re-socialize, and reintegrate?” The answer is not a simple yes or no. To...
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Integrative Treatment for Co-Occurring Disorders in Service Members, Veterans, and Military Families in a Civilian Inpatient Setting
Since September 11th, 2001, over two million United States service members have been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. Multiple factors related to the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and the Global War on Terror (e.g., multiple deployments, length of deployments, intensity and nature of combat...
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Healing PTSD Through Relationship and Touch
When six-year-old Mandi* came to us, she had suffered significant trauma in her early years from a drug-addicted mother, a father in prison, and several disrupted foster placements. She reacted to any limit setting with uncontrollable tantrums, terrorizing and discouraging her latest well-meaning...
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Accessing the Untouchables: The Touch Points to Change
Effective treatment of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) requires helping the trauma survivor find ways of acknowledging the role of past trauma in shaping his or her present experience and creating a vision for the future. Without a roadmap, this seemingly simple task may confound both...
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Survivors of Sexual Abuse: A Personal Journey
As part of the Personalized Recovery Oriented Services program at the Mental Health Association of Rockland County, Inc. that began earlier this year, a group named Survivors of Sexual Abuse-Women was launched. This closed group, led by Marian Rhein, LCSWR, was designed to serve the needs of women...
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The Many Aspects of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder
Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is an anxiety disorder that may develop in individuals who have experienced or witnessed an event that involves threatened death or serious injury, such as military combat, physical or sexual assault, natural disaster, terrorist attack, or motor vehicle...
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Using Virtual Reality for Treatment and Prevention of Post-Traumatic Stress and Other Anxiety Disorders
Significant opportunities for the health and medical communities are becoming available through technological advancements in the Virtual Reality (VR) arena. The Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT), a University Affiliated Research Center, is one example of a research center enabling the...
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Virtually Endless Possibilities in Trauma-Related Mental Health Care: A New NYC-DOHMH Training Initiative
We are at a turning point in the way we teach and learn medicine. In this information age, virtual technology-based training methods are becoming powerful learning tools for medical professionals, allowing them to learn and practice new skills, anytime, anywhere: from their homes, offices or from...
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Addressing Gun Violence to Combat PTSD in Children
Children exposed to violence, especially gun violence, are at great risk of developing symptoms associated with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). In fact, nearly 100% of children who have witnessed the violent death of someone they know, especially a family member, develop these debilitating...
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Who We Are and How We Arrived at Today: Thirty Years of Treating People Who are Trauma Survivors
The WJCS Treatment Center for Trauma and Abuse (TCTA) has been in the forefront in providing mental health services to survivors of childhood sexual abuse, and other forms of trauma, in Westchester County for the past 30 years. Many of the individuals seen through this program have a diagnosis of...
