Psych Choices Blog

Trauma and its sequelae are likely the greatest challenge we face as individuals who have experienced them and as healthcare professionals who try to help. For decades and generations, post-traumatic experiences have been misunderstood, mislabeled, and misrepresented. It wasn’t that long ago when I found myself in a shouting match with a military medical healthcare individual who kept screaming at me, “There is no SUCH thing as PTSD!” It wasn’t that long ago when I listened to some of my education program cohort telling me my reactions to what I felt was professorial bullying were probably “cultural” and “well, you know, not Canadian-like.”

Ironically or may be because of all that, much of my practice today involves working with individuals who are trying to come to grips with the aftermath of a traumatic event. We’ve come a very long way in understanding PTSD as a psychological and physiological process. Our treatment protocols have improved both…