New youtube video https://youtu.be/3UeJ1Lux4pU detailing how to help the client back to their old selves post trauma – Restorative CBT (RCBT). Not only for those who have developed PTSD but also for those who have acquired other disorders, whether singly or in combination. The video is based on my new book ‘Personalising Trauma Treatment: Reframing and Reimagining’, available from amazon https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/5141wjLVgrL._SX331_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg. and published by Routledge.
RCBT is likened to restoring a dilapidated property but in some instances it may be a rebuild on the same site, for those who feel they have never functioned well. Mental time travel to a trauma/s is inevitable but it is what the person takes it to mean about today that is crucial for possible ongoing psychological debility. It is the centrality accorded to the trauma that is pivotal in the development of disorder. The book is replete with metaphor making for ease of dissemination. For example, PTSD clients are invited to consider that they are wearing a pair of ‘war-zone’ glasses and are invited to practice swapping these for the ‘spectacles’ that they would have worn in the weeks before the trauma.
It is suggested that a) there is no credible evidence that traumatic memories are different in kind to ordinary autobiographical memories and b) traumatic memories do not have unique neural basis. Consequently there is no need for clients to relive their trauma. It is much easier for clinicians and clients to consider the adaptiveness of a memory than to relive it to the point of desensitisation. In randomised control trials, trauma focused interventions result in recovery in about 50% of cases. However in routine practice because of comorbidity and population differences, the proportion is likely to be significantly less. Further to the extent that trauma-focussed interventions work, they may do so simply because the client collects experimental evidence that they are not in a ‘war zone’. There is then ample justification for approaching the psychological sequelae of trauma from an RCBT perspective.
Dr Mike Scott