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…
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