I appreciated the recent article in The New York Times, Scuba, Parrots, Yoga: Veterans Embrace Alternative Therapies for PTSD, September 17, 2016, on the proliferation of alternative therapies-- including scuba diving, yoga, and meditation-- for US veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder. Each of them is obviously attractive to and making a difference for some vets.
If we look more closely at this phenomenon, we’ll find even more important lessons, ones which should shape a more comprehensive, effective approach to veteran’s care. Here are four. First, these therapies all treat veterans as people, not patients, and avoid stigmatization. Second, the wide variety suggests that different vets gravitate to and are helped by quite different techniques. Third, every one of these approaches mobilizes each person’s capacity to help him or herself, giving control to and enhancing the self-worth of people who feel powerless and diminished. Fourth, all are offered in group settings which provide the social support that is likely the single most important element in recovery from PTSD.
These lessons animate the work The Center for Mind-Body Medicine has been doing with vets and active duty military for 10 years. As the Times previously reported, we train clinicians and vet peer counselors (currently more than 700) to lead small groups which combine a variety of self-care techniques, including meditation, guided imagery, biofeedback, and yoga; and self-expression in words, drawings, and movement. Everyone with PTSD is welcome and no one has to be diagnosed to participate. The vets, feeling respected and empowered, are enthusiastic. Some find one approach transformational, others gravitate to another. And it works. We are readying for publication a Department of Defense funded randomized controlled trial which demonstrates significant benefits. Our model, and others that also incorporate these lessons, should be available to every vet and his or her family.
James S. Gordon, a psychiatrist, is the Founder and Executive Director of The Center for Mind-Body Medicine.