Q: Dear Frank:
What if my therapist mentioned that she thought I could have ptsd but won’t explain much more about what this means?
A: Dear reader:
I try to teach therapists to become good, self-assured teachers, able to explain PTSD to their patients, to caregivers, and to general audiences. In fact, with the help of Gift From Within, I made a DVD on the subject. Teaching about PTSD is the first step in treating PTSD. So if you have a therapist who cannot or will not explain the condition, I have doubts about the confidence and competence of that therapist.
Maybe the therapist believes you need to work on a different issue, and considers too much talk about PTSD to be a distraction. But even then, I would expect a therapist to be able to discuss this in an open, collaborative way.
I hate to disparage anyone without knowing all the fact. But I do feel rather strongly that PTSD treatment should be collegial and that explaining PTSD is a responsibility of any trauma therapist.
