Understanding the damage caused by certain symptoms may help us improve the quality of life for patients with PTSD.
Lori Zoellner PhD, Director of the University of Washington’s Center for Anxiety and Traumatic Stress, published a study in the Journal of Psychiatric Services.
By interviewing 184 people seeking treatment for PTSD, she found specific symptoms that influence quality of life.
For example, symptoms like heightened arousal, irritability, trouble sleeping and anxiety were found to have a correlation with quality of life.
Whereas, according to the authors, dysfunctional behaviors or avoidance of certain thoughts and activities do not directly influence quality of life. In essence they are coping strategies.
I wish we knew more. As is so often true, more research needs to be done.
Zoellner’s research however did go further, trying to identify what patients were looking for in treatment.
Her interviews suggested that patients with PTSD, on average, would give up to 13 years of their lives to live unburdened by the symptoms of the disorder.
In an attempt to offer cutting edge information on the treatment of trauma and PTSD, NICABM has provided many courses on the treatment of trauma.
For more information, please click here to check out our courses.
Which symptoms of PTSD have you found to cause the most damage with your patients? Please share your thoughts below.
interesting study. I am trying to share a laypersons journey and healing thoughts.
Symptoms to me we’re looked on entirely different. After reading over seventy books on neuroscience, the many therapies along with the adrenal stress response and the fight or flight cortisol dump of a trigger. Personally, I found that trauma fuels when we dissociate with a trigger frightening us.
The amount of time spent in dissociation increases all other symptoms. We are more afraid of these truly scary moments of terror. We become sensitive or hypersensity as we avoid and trauma grows.
Every thought that enters our consciousness offers a choice. Avoid and leave this moment and trauma grows. Stay present focused in the breath and calm wins. Stay present and observe the body sensations and feeling accompanying the trigger thought and the delusion of PTSD is revealed.
Our amygdala is just disordered by memories stored in childhood for me. They are no more powerful than a current thought of stopping traffic. hypervigilance and avoidance will fade.
basically you can assume that the more time you spend present empty of trauma thoughts the healed mentally you will be. As Rick Hanson says What fires together wires together.
Well that is what I have found and it can improve someone with a system full of cortisol and highly activated. Another benefit with this idea is that we are heading toward our triggers with awareness and mindfulness. using mindfulness for exposure therapy is the safest and easiest before taking it to real life.
i like the proposal writing part i have to keep these points in my mind for writing a better proposal in future as i am also a small business entrepreneur..thanks for sharing..
As I entered menopause with my, at that time still not diagnosed tho’the reality that had taken me into therapy more than once, complex pts, what I used to call ‘unremitting irritability’ became my constant companion. I had learned early in my childhood, thank goodness, to keep my emotions off my face and to myself, so didn’t lose all my friends and dear husband during this time. The lifelong anxiety, trouble sleeping, and hypervigilance also became so magnified that I could no longer imagine or manage living with them.
13 years? By that point I was willing to give whatever it took to heal or die tryin’ if that was required. Fortunately it wasn’t.
And wonderful folks like Ruth B and so many others began sharing tools for healing. When I couldn’t find a therapist who believed in the possibility I read everything I could find and did the work myself. Had nothing to lose and heaven to gain. So glad I did and so grateful to so many for this ‘wild and wonderful life’.
In response to what Shelley Krapes said about the lack of understanding of trauma on children at school. I’m with you. I’ve been advocating for children in schools and with parents for over 15 years. I have done workshops on Stress Trauma and the Impact on the Developmental Stages of Childhood for as long. My policy has been that no matter what a child’s diagnosis if they have a trauma history that is what we work on. I’ve shared this informtion with schools but unfortunately in the area I live in the common practice is that ‘whooping’ them is what they need. As difficult as it has been I keep on. So hang in there with the information getting out there now the troops are on the way.
I believe that we have two primary emotions: love and fear. Unintegrated trauma keeps the body in an ongoing state of fear. This fear reactivity comes out as anger, nasty mood swings and irritability or depression and withdrawal or both. What people don’t understand is that this dysregulated state is a war going on inside the person that they keep trying to contain. The problem is eventually they can’t contain it and their behaviors become problematic.
What happens in my practice is it’s the spouse that complains about the symptoms of moodiness, anger and overall bad temper . And in order to keep the marriage the one with the PTSD goes for help.
PTSD soldiers seem to see sleep problems and anger as primary disruptions. They mess up relationships, cause legal issues and disrupt careers. The anger gets triggered in ways that cause embarrassment and scare families and friends.
This is what I have experienced for many years. I left a relationship that was meaningful and wished I could go back to it and fix it. Can’t sleep at night and fight against fear of losing my job in any day.
This will not answer the question directly but as a school psychologist, I have seen many examples of PTSD symptoms in children in school.These symptoms so effected the quality of their lives in school because they were not understood by the principal, teacher or any of the clinical staff. I advocated to no avail. These kids,coming to school after having experienced any number of traumatizing events,such as living in a shelter after their house burnt down, witnessing a body thrown off a roof, as well as the usual, physical, sexual and verbal abuse from parents.
The diagnosis of PTSD has never been available to apply to children with such experiences but is essential in
understanding how quality of life issues can be addressed.
Thank you so much Ruth for this enormously valuable series.