Reframing PTSD as Traumatic Grief: How Caregivers Can Companion Traumatized Grievers Through Catch-Up Mourning (The Companioning Series)

An estimated eight percent of Americans are thought to be suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder at any given time. Many are victims of or witnesses to violence. Others have been neglected of abused. Some have experienced a traumatic accident or natural disaster. Still others have experienced the sudden and perhaps violent death of someone they love. No matter the cause, PTSD results in symptoms of acute stress, including anxiety, persistent thoughts or flashbacks, and a host of other physical, emotional, cognitive, social, and spiritual challenges. In this guide for counselors and caregivers, Dr. Alan Wolfelt reframes PTSD as a form of grief. Helping PTSD sufferers mourn their unacknowledged and "carried" grief over the traumatic events that caused their symptoms is the key to helping them heal. Rather than seeking to quickly treat away symptoms of PTSD, caregivers who follow Dr. Wolfelt's "companioning" philosophy will instead see the natural and necessary PTSD symptoms as indications that the sufferer needs additional support and encouragement to express himself. This holistic new approach acknowledges clinical PTSD treatments as part of the solution while emphasizing that authentic mourning is the primary and most essential healer. --Provided by publisher "An estimated eight percent of Americans--more than 25 million people--are thought to be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder at any given time. Because PTSD and its debilitating symptoms touch the lives of so many people, in recent decades the condition has risen to the fore as one of the most concerning and studied mental-health issues of our time. But what if PTSD was not considered a disorder or mental illness but rather a normal and necessary response to an abnormal event? What if PTSD was seen as a complicated grief response? And what if we helped traumatized grievers authentically and fully mourn instead of trying to treat away their symptoms with medical therapies? In this provocative treatise, Dr. Alan Wolfelt argues that normalizing and expressing grief--mourning--is the missing piece in the complex puzzle that is PTSD"--Front jacket flap