Reddit reviews Prolonged Exposure Therapy for PTSD (Treatments That Work)

I have to say, as a former military mental health technician of six years, having worked extensively with both Active Duty Army and Air Force populations...

> It’s because the vast majority of us are straight up sociopaths.

This simply is not true.

Additionally,

>only roughly 20% of combat troops ever get PTSD – when if you think about it, it should affect everyone that ever sees combat

This isn't how PTS works. (source) What I think he's doing is confusing PTS with Acute Stress Disorder or Decompression.

I can admit that I might be personalizing this a little bit, but it really bothers me when military members are misrepresented in this way. Are there some sociopaths? Yes, absolutely. But they are not a "majority", just like they aren't a majority in the civilian world. People seem to forget sometimes that the military is just a small percentage of the civilian population, with mental health numbers that are often comparable to civilian numbers, as far as incidence goes. While it's true that the incidence of PTS is higher, that is, of course, the nature of the work. Suicide numbers have been higher in the past, as well, but it's not fair to associate all suicides with sociopaths.

EDIT: links

EMDR is a great and effective therapy. I did exposure therapy. Studies found that EMDR sometimes needs to be repeated after the initial treatment. Often two or three times over years. It's almost as though it can wear off. At least that's how EMDR sounded to me. Also I personally couldn't reconcile how blinking at lot while talking could help anything (EMDR is MUCH more than that). I had a few people in the outpatient therapy program I was in do EMDR. It worked great for them and I only know of two of the four needing to repeat treatment after about a year.

Exposure therapy is kind of like desensitization. You speak in great detail about your trauma with your therapist over and over. You say everything that happened and when you're done you say it over and over and over. It's rough, it's triggery, it's kinda of horrible while you're doing it. It was even rough on my therapist. I'd do it all over again though because it really worked well. The bonus to exposure therapy other than the long term healing is that just about any good therapist can do it. In fact my therapist and I bought the same book/workbook series in an effort to learn more about doing exposure therapy correctly and effectively. The funny thing is neither of us knew the other was buying it. He showed up to my next session with the therapist book full of bookmarks and I showed up with the workbook. Finding a therapist you can trust and connect with is key. If after a few sessions it feels like they aren't hearing or understanding you. It's time to find a new one. This is the series my therapist and I used. Reclaiming Your Life from a Traumatic Experience: A Prolonged Exposure Treatment Program (Treatments That Work) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0195308484/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_UBJEzbDANVX82 , Prolonged Exposure Therapy for PTSD: Emotional Processing of Traumatic aExperiences (Treatments That Work) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0195308506/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_tGJEzbD0GZ3EC .