Trauma (PTSD)

Trauma symptoms can develop immediately after someone experiences a disturbing event, or it can occur weeks, months or even years later. PTSD is estimated to affect about 1 in every 3 people who have a traumatic experience, even apparently minor but persistent abuse can trigger this response, but it's not clear exactly why some people develop the condition and others do not.

Any situation that a person finds traumatic can cause symptoms. This may be a clearly identifiable event like a road accident, a personal assault, serious health problems, or difficult childbirth experiences.  People who repeatedly experience neglect, abuse or violence can develop symptoms, often many years after the event.  Even apparently insignificant but repeated abandonment, criticism or anger may create ‘micro trauma’, resulting in symptoms like poor connection, self worth and hyper vigilance. It's often more severe if the trauma was experienced early in life, as this can affect a child's development. 

Western medicine treats PTSD with anti-depressants and/or psychological therapies such as trauma-focused cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) or eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing (EMDR). 

Increasingly we are recognising the importance of the body, mind spirit connection.   The ground breaking work of Peter Levine called the Somatic Experiencing method is a body orientated approach to the healing of trauma, resulted from his multidisciplinary study of stress physiology, psychology, ethology, neuroscience and indigenous healing practices.  It provides a framework to assess where a person is stuck in the fight, flight or freeze response, unable to process and move forward. 

In the classical tradition the Five Element acupuncturist sees trauma symptoms (like all symptoms) as a sign of the person trying to re-find balance. All living beings are governed by the natural laws we observe in nature and the trauma symptoms experienced by the presenting patient will have a cause in one of the five elements that produce our outer and inner reality.