War PTSD

[poolplayer]

War PTSD

After almost 3 years, I have taken leave from our US Army's premiere PTSD, Ft Bliss Restoration & Resilience Center. (do search, R & R Center). I left for family reason, but it was the greatest experience of my life working in an Integrative Health Center along side of most of the body-mind-spirit professionals--reiki, medical massage, acupuncture, 15-Minute StressOut Program, meditation, movement therapies, water polo, therapeutic outings, therapeutic arts, group & individual therapies, etc. The soldiers spent 35 hrs. a week for 6 months in this intensive and extensive program becoming resilient and we did followup as long as necessary. We are now doing followup studies, so time will tell.

Several of us around the country are beginning to build a network of practitioners to continue to advance our work and our model of PTS. Note: some of us do not accept that PTSD is a disorder, disease, or an illness, rather we see it as a natural response to (war) trauma that affects the whole being. It is for this reason that whole body, mind, spirit and social interventions or practices are necessary to promote healing. We had the psychiatrists with their pill available, the ones who got better the quickest were those who didn't take the meds or left them ASAP. (more of my observation--time will tell)

Anyway, do keep me posted if you wish to be put on a support list for body work in your City and State. My administrator will maintain a data base for those who wish to build their experience working with vets, soldiers and their families. In any event, do give our Warriors special attention and notice as body work is one of the great methods to help them slow down their minds and restore their health and wellbeing. Many of you have many skills so do note them on your note to Brent Laracuente http://www.15minutestressout.com

Thanks for your interest in PTS. You are a great resource for our vets and families. I didn't mention that we also worked with their families as PTS is also an injury that definitely affects the family and our greater community. If you have a vet center in your area, do visit them and let them know how valuable you are to them for recovery.

Best wishes,

Jerry

Hi Jerry -

We are located reasonably near to the VA center in Minneapolis (maybe 20 minutes away) and we see a number of returning vets with PTSD. We have enjoyed reading about the work you have been involved with, and have incorporated some of the things you've discussed into how we work with those individuals. We would be happy to be added to your support list, and look forward to learning more about the long-term outcomes as the data becomes available.

Jason & Kelly
Keep In Touch Massage of Eagan, MN

 

[loh m]

War PTSD

Thanks, Jason. I think that if we continue to be aware of the serious nature of these injuries of our service members and offer them skillful and nourishing touch, perhaps they will not feel so alone in the world. This PTS injury is very serious as it affects the whole being, their families and our society. The mental and behavioral health programs are overwhelmed and don't generally have the ability for treating these injuries with integrative methods that promote healing. I would recommend that those of you who have these skills to form a coalition or consortium to reach out to our vets and their families.Invite existing vet organizations to these advocacy groups so that they can serve as sponsors as well. We are facing an epidemic of PTS injuries in the country and the longer we wait to repond, the harder PTS is to treat. Most of the warriors that I work with initially isolate themselves from everyone, including their family so it is often difficult to bring them out into the community for services. Obviously, they have a very low trust level of our society as we put them in harms way for far too long with little regard for their lives, health and relationship.

And,I encourage my colleagues to be open, honest, loving, compassionate and understanding. No Judgment! Also, don't buy into the conventional thinking by the MH industry that this injury is a disorder, disease or sickness that will never be healed. I believe that there is more and more evidence based practices that demonstrate our integrative methods do work and reduce the pain and suffering. These labels of PTSD are not well designed to promote healing and do create hopelessness. '

One last thought...beware of the Big Pharmas and their partners who trust these psychotropic meds that have very little, if any, long term value. Do visit my logs on the New Civilization Network -- http//www.newciv.org . Do visit our homepage to see our focus on health rather than on sickcare.

Jerry
http://jerryvest.pages.qpg.com

 

[biswajit g]

War PTSD

Hi my friends and colleagues. I just posted a log on one of my forums to discuss the development of community coalitions and alliances to serve our injured warriors. http://blogs.delphiforums.com/n/blogs/blog.aspx?webeforum.xxx=vajara

We now know that the mental health/behavioral health industry has failed to help restore health and wellbeing with our injured warriors,much because they primarily diagnose and label their clients/patients with some fabricated disease that they identify as a disorder. The true health professionals in these systems are then forced to abide by these treatment methods prescribed by psychiatry and psychology with meds being the primary treatment. There is little followup or any evidence that these meds work for long and produce many side affects that are only treated with additional meds. The conventional therapy is primarily considered supportive, however, the injured soldiers are rarely given adequate resources and referred for integrative health practices and holistic therapy so is it any surprise that they drop out and continue to suffer with stress, anxiety and depression.

Also, many of these mental health pros tell their clients or patients that they must live with this "disorder" or disease the rest of their lives and treated much like many cancer patients--they lose Hope and kill themselves. Who wants to live with a life long injury without any hope for improvement.

This is a response that I gave a noted psychiatrist on Huffington Post.

“Yes, there are many things our society can do to prevent suicides. We can, first of all, stop identifying War PTS a disorder, disease or illness. It is a serious injury that affects the whole being physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually and socially. Because of this mental health label, our warriors don't wish to be identified or receive these superficial therapies. The psychiatrists can stop overmedicating them and provide integrative health programs and holistic therapies. The wider community can welcome our warriors home by giving them community services, provide sponsors and resources for every vet and family returning from these long wars and tours of duty. We can hold our VA and other military programs responsible for updating their services and make certain that followup and put outreach programs in place to respond to every warrior at risk and this is just about everyone returning from war.

Also, the Warrior Transition Battalions can provide meaningful work opportunities for our injured soldiers and change their MOS when they can no longer perform or meet the physical requirements for their work. We can stop pushing them out of the service and the culture that they love.

Come on, stop labeling our warriors and begin providing intensive and extensive integrative health practices for them and their families. Only then can you say that we can't prevent suicide. For sure they deserve a Purple Heart, but more so, they need to receive the Heart of America for their great service.” http://forums.delphiforums.com/stressout/messages/?msg=1378.1

This is too long for most to read, but do visit our plan to develop community organizations in every community. I don't think we can count on the mental health industry to take the lead, but we can encourage our integrative health community to now organize for Right Action. The other conventional therapies are insufficient and unable to touch the core and help our warriors restore their health and wellbeing. However, our touch therapies, Reiki, hoistic therapies, meditation-movement &, acupuncture, acupressure, mindfulness and other new age treatments and technology do work. Our 15 Minute Stressout Program has been very effective with couples and famiies. See our website to learn how we can network and produce real results with our Wounded Warriors and their Families. http://jerryvest.pages.qpg.com

Thank you all for listening to my verbosity. I am enthusiastic about community action and body-mind-spirit health for this serious injury. We have seen the results over the past 3 years in our R & R Center.

Best wishes,

Jerry

Note: Pic is Jesus Zamora (Chewy), a Vietnam Vet who models outreach and followup for our Warriors and Vets. He is a great resource and will do what it takes to respond to the call for help by our soldiers.

 

[Maureen]

War PTSD

Here are some good articles I was actually just reading before I saw this post.

http://www.massagetherapy.com/articles/index.php/article_id/383/Back-from-Hell from ABMP's massagetherapy.com site

http://www.massagemag.com/Magazine/2007/issue135/OE_Vets.php article from massagemag on the Veteran's Administration's opinion on massage and vets with PTSD

 

[Viperflash]

War PTSD

Thanks for the announcements. I think that opportunities for body work with our vets will increase significantly once the research gets published.

Jerry