Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD): Causes, Symptoms, and Treatment Options

What is PTSD?
What are the symptoms of PTSD?
- Flashbacks
- Nightmares
- Severe anxiety
- Frightening, intrusive thoughts
- Persistent feelings of sadness, irritability, anger, or fear
- Inability to feel positive emotions
- Problems with concentration
- Difficulty sleeping
- Detachment from people and activities
- Avoiding anything that reminds you of the event or triggers symptoms
Causes and Risk Factors of PTSD
- Experiencing intense or long-lasting trauma
- Having a high chronic stress load leading up to the traumatic event
- Having experienced other trauma earlier in life
- Having a job that increases your risk of being exposed to traumatic events, such as military personnel and first responders
How is PTSD diagnosed?
- At least one re-experiencing symptom (i.e. flashbacks, bad dreams, frightening thoughts, etc.)
- At least one avoidance symptom (i.e. avoiding thoughts, feelings, places, people, or things that remind you of the traumatic experience)
- At least two arousal and reactivity symptoms (i.e. being easily startled, feeling tense or “on edge,” having trouble sleeping, having angry outbursts, etc.)
- At least two cognition and mood symptoms (i.e. negative thoughts about oneself or the world, loss of interest in enjoyable activities, distorted feelings like guilt or blame, etc.)
How is PTSD treated?
Not everyone who develops PTSD will require treatment. For some people, symptoms of PTSD aren’t very severe and disappear on their own with time.
That being said, many people with PTSD do require treatment to recover, at no fault of their own. Let’s discuss the available treatment options, including the re-origin program, and the advantages and disadvantages of each approach.
Psychotherapy
Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) or Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
Prolonged Exposure (PE)
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
Medication
Antidepressants
Anti-anxiety medications
This class of drugs is used to reduce anxiety. The drawback is that anti-anxiety medications carry the potential for abuse and side effects and are notoriously difficult to discontinue. As with antidepressants, anti-anxiety medications don’t address the root neurochemical cause of the symptoms, opening the door to dependency.
Our Approach: re-origin
How to live and cope with PTSD
There are many suggestions out there for living and coping with PTSD, some of which include spending time with friends and family, enjoying nature, joining a support group, and practicing relaxation techniques. While all of these things are good practices and could offer some momentary benefit, they don’t address the root cause of your PTSD symptoms.
At re-origin, we don’t want you to live with or have to cope with PTSD—we want you to recover, eliminating the need for coping mechanisms. The key to overcoming PTSD lies in systematically using a proven methodology to switch off the overactive threat responses in the brain and build more functional neural pathways. That’s where re-origin comes in!
Our program involves applying an easy to follow five-step neurocognitive technique to override and rewire maladapted conditioning in the brain. You can learn more about the technique with a free trial at re-origin.com/freetrial.
Frequently Asked Questions
Based on extensive research, we believe that PTSD results from experiencing a traumatic event while your chronic stress load is already high. This combination essentially overwhelms the brain, leading to an overactive stress response and unproductive, conditioned patterns in the brain.
The triggering event can be anything that generates fear, shock, horror, or helplessness. The event can involve you directly, be something that you were a witness to, or be something that involved someone you’re close to.
A Final Word from re-origin
References
- American Psychiatric Association
- The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). Available from: https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/post-traumatic-stress-disorder-ptsd/
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- Mayo Clinic. Available from: https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/post-traumatic-stress-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20355967
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- Belleau, E. L., Chin, E. G., Wanklyn, S. G., Zambrano-Vazquez, L., Schumacher, J. A., & Coffey, S. F. (2017). Pre-treatment predictors of dropout from prolonged exposure therapy in patients with chronic posttraumatic stress disorder and comorbid substance use disorders. Behaviour research and therapy, 91, 43–50. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brat.2017.01.011
- Seidler, G. H., & Wagner, F. E. (2006). Comparing the efficacy of EMDR and trauma-focused cognitive-behavioral therapy in the treatment of PTSD: a meta-analytic study. Psychological medicine, 36(11), 1515–1522. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0033291706007963
- Cipriani, A., Furukawa, T. A., Salanti, G., Chaimani, A., Atkinson, L. Z., Ogawa, Y., … & Geddes, J. R. (2018). Comparative efficacy and acceptability of 21 antidepressant drugs for the acute treatment of adults with major depressive disorder: a systematic review and network meta-analysis. Focus, 16(4), 420-429.
- WebMD. Available from: https://www.webmd.com/depression/features/coping-with-side-effects-of-depression-treatment
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- Anxiety & Depression Association of America. Available from: https://adaa.org/understanding-anxiety/posttraumatic-stress-disorder-ptsd/symptoms#:~:text=The%20disorder%20is%20characterized%20by,are%20reminders%20of%20the%20trauma