National PTSD Awareness Day

Today is National PTSD Awareness Day. Seems like everyone has heard the acronym “PTSD,” but do you really know what it is?

• Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
• Caused by a (or more than one) traumatic event that generated intense fear, helplessness, or horror.
• In the news often in relation to veterans, but many civilians have it too.
• Occurs in about 8% of the general population and 10-30% of combat vets (varies by war). Chances are you know someone struggling, possibly undiagnosed, with PTSD.
• Common causes include any form of assault, victimization, disaster, or situation that put the person in fear for his or her life or someone else’s.
• Symptoms can mimic depression, other forms of anxiety, AD/HD, sleep disorders, learning disability or conduct disorder in children, and other physical and emotional conditions.
• Not a character flaw or weakness.
• Treatable.
• More info: http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/post-traumatic-stress-disorder-ptsd/index.shtml
• And more info: http://www.ptsd.va.gov/index.asp

 

What do you think about the TV shows about hoarding?

I find most of them infuriating for their shaming, watch-the-train-wreck emphasis and deplorable lack of empathy for the people they profile. There have been a few isolated instances that weren’t all bad, for example the pilot episode of TLC’s Hoarding: Buried Alive, but overall the phenomenon of hoarding on television is an exploitative disaster. 

It’s important to recognize that television programs are meant to entertain. The producers, driven by their advertisers, want you to be glued to the screen for every episode, so they pack in drama, tension, conflict, and some sort of resolution to keep you interested. Unfortunately, entertainment and competent, ethical mental health treatment are largely incompatible–hence my fury.

What you see on most such shows is an unnecessarily and sometimes harmfully accelerated process with a fake deadline imposed to give the viewer a satisfying conclusion. Those of us who abide by ethical practice take issue with these shows for a number of reasons, including:

• The key ethical tenet of voluntary consent is violated when a person is compensated with cash or products for appearing on a show and again when items are discarded against his or her will, either through coercion or deception.
• Another serious ethical violation–client abandonment–occurs when the client is not provided with ongoing therapy after the filming. Simply suggesting “you should get therapy for this” on your way out the door does not constitute an adequate transfer of treatment.
• The top ethical directive of all healthcare codes of ethics–maintaining the client’s dignity and wellbeing–is continually trampled with the insulting, judgmental, dismissive remarks and eye-rolling, retching, gagging, and other nonverbal demonstrations of disgust that run rampant through most of these shows.

Bottom line: Real-life treatment by an ethical practitioner bears little resemblance to what you see on TV.