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COGNITIVE PROCESSING THERAPY HELPS VETS DEAL WITH

TRAUMA -- CPT is a 12-week program that includes having a

soldier write down his experiences so he can learn to put them

back in the context where they belong, as memories, not realities.

This is the "one therapy" for PTSD that VA has been pushing.  For an article on the rush to "one therapy," go here...
http://www.vawatchdog.org/08/nf08/nfMAR08/nf032408-3.htm

The problem is, this therapy has proved successful with rape victims, and few others.  For more about Cognitive Processing Therapy, use the VA Watchdog search engine...click here...
http://www.yourvabenefits.org/sessearch.php?q=cog
nitive+processing+therapy&op=ph

Some are calling this a "cure."  Former VA Secretary Jim Nicholson touted this treatment as a "cure" for PTSD.  That story here...
http://www.vawatchdog.org/07/nf07/nfSEP07/nf091607-11.htm

For more about veterans and PTSD, use the VA Watchdog search engine...click here...
http://www.yourvabenefits.org/sessearch.php?q=ptsd&op=and

Story here... http://www.azcentral.com/ar
izonarepublic/local/articles/0319anniversary0319.html

Story below:

-------------------------

Program helps vets deal with trauma

Michael Kiefer
The Arizona Republic

Charles Thomas came home from a National Guard tour in February 2006.

But his frame of mind stayed in Iraq, and he is not alone.

Five years ago today, Operation Iraqi Freedom began, and members of the military like Thomas return home and find themselves struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Recently, the Carl T. Hayden Veterans Affairs Medical Center began a new program to help veterans like Thomas deal with PTSD.

Thomas, 43, of Mesa, was a platoon sergeant in a military police company. He had been in firefights. He had fished bloated bodies out of the Tigris River. He had removed equipment from military vehicles stained and reeking from the blown-out brains of his soldiers who had been killed.

"I was like a sponge," he said. "I absorbed a lot of that so my soldiers didn't have to do that."

When he came home from war and retired from the military, however, he couldn't sit in a crowded room. He was still scanning overpasses for bombs and snipers, even as he was driving to work in Phoenix, especially on a stretch of Loop 202 that reminded him of Iraq. And he went into a panic in a traffic jam.

He was thinking like he had to think in Iraq: "If you get boxed in, you're most likely going to die."

Help for vets

There are more than 9,600 male and female veterans of the Gulf War and the Iraq and Afghan conflicts that receive treatment at the Phoenix medical center. Of those, 3,200 have done two or more tours of duty; some have done as many as seven.

And it has taken a toll.

All are screened for PTSD, said Adriana Tarazon, a psychologist who specializes in veterans from the Afghan and Iraq wars, Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom. There are currently 286 veterans of those two conflicts who are undergoing therapy for PTSD at the medical center.

"I find myself almost being a salesman for treatment," Tarazon said. "(The veterans) don't think they need help because they still think avoidance is going to work for them."

That was Thomas' strategy with his family. He didn't talk. He held it inside until he exploded and a colleague at work suggested he get help.

New therapy tool

PTSD was a controversial subject when Vietnam veterans began to complain about it in the years after that war.

Now it's a given, and the VA has developed several therapy models to deal with it, trying to nip it in the bud before it festers.

"I can predict what's going to happen to these guys," Tarazon said. "They're going to push away from people and their world is going to get smaller and smaller. And in 10 years they're going to come back and say I've been divorced twice and my kids don't talk to me because I can't keep a job."

Tarazon practices a relatively new therapy called Cognitive Processing Therapy, or CPT, that focuses on the events that caused the trauma.

"It teaches veterans about the beliefs that they have established, given their experiences," she said.

While at war, the soldier no longer feels safe while at work or while sleeping.

"He creates a new belief about the world: that the world is not safe," Tarazon said. "He has a combat mentality that works - in combat. But then he comes home and part of the transition home is that you transition from these beliefs to more civilian beliefs. That's when they get stuck."

CPT is a 12-week program that includes having a soldier write down his experiences so he can learn to put them back in the context where they belong - as memories, not day-to-day realities.

The medical center began using CPT after promising research came back from Veterans Affairs and a study from the Institute of Medicine.

Through the program, Thomas realized that he was especially fixated on a pair of events: one where he had to deal with the remains of two soldiers killed by a bomb, and another when his unit came under attack on three sides.

Eight of his soldiers were wounded, none killed, but Thomas had to drag them to safety and treat their wounds while directing the remaining soldiers in defending against the attack.

"One of the guys had 100 holes in him from the waist down," Thomas said.

Thomas still does not enter crowded places like stores or restaurants. He tries to avoid the freeway during rush hour. He takes medication for anxiety.

He is still in treatment.

How do you turn off the PTSD?

"You don't," he said. "You learn how to deal with it."

-------------------------

posted by Larry Scott
Founder and Editor
VA Watchdog dot Org

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