Does Anyone Believe?
Unrelenting flashbacks, complete with role reversal and self-harm, are often the most pressing issue. It's terrifying, and you know you need to lock up and restrict your loved one (or your patient, if you're a therapist) to regain control. If this has occurred to you previously, you know that it is traumatic for both you and the patient. If you've been down this path before, you may have given up hope that better choices for care that treats patients with dignity and respect still exist.
Expectation May Be Fulfilled
Outpatient care for dissociative disorders is improving as more professionals have the expertise to deliver targeted therapies for the condition. They use a combination of art therapy, hypnosis, and video therapy as part of a marathon treatment program run by a team of experts. The therapy is individualized and does not include the use of medicines or constraints.
Treatment for Severe Trauma Based on Solid Research
Despite 15 years of research and development, the therapy is brand new. Pierre Janet, a French physician, first discovered effective treatments for what was then known as hysteria in the early nineteenth century and pioneered their modern use. The new techniques were created at West Virginia University and a Veterans Administration hospital, and then refined at a separate institution called the Trauma Recovery Institute, which makes use of cutting-edge neuroscientific information and cutting-edge technological applications. After a reliable technique for speedy trauma processing that didn't include reliving the incident emotionally was discovered, therapy shifted to a short intense approach.
Revelation No. 1
Pierre Janet and his disciples were patient and persistent in their application of the cure, ensuring that their scared patients were stabilized before allowing them to obtain and "work through" insight into their unconscious. The recent research illuminated the evolutionary survival tactics that manifest in a person's baseline reaction to trauma. This finding uncovered the fact that doing certain reparative acts might recast the painful memory as a harmless historical artifact. There is no need to put in time or effort beyond the accomplishment of a few targeted reparative activities for the therapy process to take effect. Just as much time as is strictly necessary to accomplish the goals should be spent in therapy.
Cure by Constant Repeating
Therapists attempted to compress treatment methods into a marathon approach once they realized trauma therapy training might go forward without waiting for understanding to simmer over time. They booked the same amount of time in two weeks instead of spreading it out over 52 weeks (10 days with the weekend off). They were pleasantly surprised to see that many not only tolerated but also preferred the marathon treatment regimen. Excellent outcomes were measured after one week, three months, and six months. Conclusions from the first 50 dissociative patients (37 DDNOS, 13 DID) showed 31% recovery, 53% improvement, 12% status quo, and 4% worsening.
Where Can I Find It Currently?
Professionals in the helping professions are receiving training to provide trauma counseling. West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and California all have individual practitioners, but only Morgantown, West Virginia offers the team method. As of now, health insurance plans do not pay for the marathon method. The demand is growing, however, so it's probable that this therapy will become more generally accessible in the not-too-distant future.