PTSD has a lifetime prevalence rate of nearly 10% in women (5% in men), which rivals that of depression. Fortunately, the DSM-5 "holy book" made it easier to diagnose PTSD, and recent research has provided us with much more effective treatments.
This popular workshop begins with a review of debriefing (i.e., interventions designed to prevent PTSD after a trauma), including insights from the lead presenter’s work with the Canadian government's National Roundtable in Ottawa. We then review a shortcut to the diagnosis of PTSD, proceeding from there to the details of (and controversies pertaining to) the fuller diagnostic criteria. The core of the workshop—training in treatment—emphasizes those tools realistic for use in primary care. As always, the assumption is a ten-minute appointment (with three patients in the waiting room). Special topics include the curious case of EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), “emotional baggage” (i.e., old traumata), the eye-opening forgiveness research, so-called "hindsight bias", the Oprah-esque "imaginal rescripting", intergenerational trauma, the Faustian bargain of children who survived ACEs (adverse childhood experiences), complex PTSD (C-PTSD), trauma-informed care, and what data we have on medical marijuana. The workshop ends with a very uplifting topic: the emerging and exceedingly hopeful literature on post-traumatic growth.