No Talking, No Drugs—Spec-Ops Vets Pioneer Quiet PTSD Therapy

 

By Kimberly Dozier

With a seemingly endless backlog of cases facing the armed forces, a new treatment—Accelerated Resolution Therapy—is giving new hope for patients.

HOLIDAY, Florida – You feel a little foolish, but you never have to say a word—about remembering your own blood pooling warm around you, with its iron smell, the reek of a thousand matches invading your nose, or the surge of pain, then panic at not being able to move.

That’s what I remembered from 10 years ago, when a car bomb ripped through an army foot patrol, my CBS News television camera team, and me.

You need say nothing out loud. You just keep your body still and your eyes follow the tic-toc of the therapist’s hand going back and forth, while you think silently to yourself about the sights, sounds, and emotions that you want to loosen from your head, heart, and soul.

It’s called Accelerated Resolution Therapy, a new tool to treat acute trauma, post-traumatic stress, anxiety, and depression that is being adopted into the menu of treatments available at Walter Reed and other army centers, and a vanguard of trailblazing veterans groups.

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Source: The Daily Beast