PTSD Treatment & Trauma Recovery

PTSD Symptoms

PTSD involves four main symptom clusters:

• Intrusive symptoms: These are unwanted memories or flashbacks of the trauma, nightmares related to the trauma, severe emotional distress, and physical reactions, like racing heart and sweating.
• Avoidance: This means avoiding thoughts, feelings, conversations, places, people, or activities that trigger memories of the traumatic event(s).
• Negative changes in thinking or mood: This can include persistent negative beliefs about yourself or the world, blaming yourself or others, feeling persistent fear, anger, guilt, or shame, losing interest in activities, feeling emotionally numb or detached from others, and difficulty with remembering important aspects of the traumatic event.
• Changes in arousal: This can include being on constant alert (called hypervigilance), having a startle response to sudden sounds or visual cues, partaking in reckless or self-harmful behavior, having difficulty concentrating or sleeping, and feeling irritable or aggressive.

Getting a PTSD Diagnosis

Montana will ask about the traumatic event, your response at the time, and how symptoms have affected your life since.

Together, you’ll explore:

• The nature of the trauma and your role in it.
• When the symptoms started and how they’ve changed.
• Intrusive thoughts, memories, nightmares, and flashbacks you’ve experienced.
• What you avoid related to the trauma.
• Negative beliefs and changes in mood.
• Sleep, concentration, and physical health.
• Substance abuse (which is a common way people cope with PTSD).
• Suicidal thoughts or ideation.

This is a compassionate, careful conversation. We understand how hard it is to talk about trauma.

PTSD Treatment in Kansas

When it comes to treating post-traumatic stress disorder, Brady Psychiatry uses a variety of techniques to help you begin feeling better and living on your own terms.

Therapy

Trauma-focused and trauma-informed therapy such as cognitive processing therapy (CPT), prolonged exposure (PE), and eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) can help you process trauma in a safe setting and become more resilient.

CPT focuses on understanding how the trauma has changed your thinking, while PE involves gradually facing trauma-related memories and situations in a controlled way. EMDR is an evidence-based therapy where bilateral stimulation (eye movements or tapping) helps your brain process traumatic memories and reduce their emotional impact.

Medication

SSRIs, which are commonly prescribed for other mental health disorders like depression, can be helpful with PTSD as well. These medications help reduce symptoms, particularly intrusive thoughts and mood changes. Prazosin, an older blood pressure medication, can also help with nightmares.

Lifestyle and Coping

Certain lifestyle factors can reduce your PTSD symptoms or help you better manage them. These can include:

• Sleep hygiene: Establishing a sleep routine and schedule.
• Grounding techniques to feel more present in the moment.
• Mindfulness and meditation.
• Regular physical activities, such as working out, walking, or doing yoga.
• Developing a strong support system, including your clinicians, friends, family, or peer groups.
• Avoiding substance use, including drugs, alcohol, and caffeine.