At Mirasol we have been seeing much more serious trauma in clients who are currently admitting for treatment. In fact, we’re seeing so much trauma that we’re having all clinicians trained in EMDR, one of the most effective trauma interventions. We want to make sure that all our clinicians have the best tools available for treating PTSD and early childhood trauma.
Along with Clinical Director Diane Ryan, we are reviewing any new information available in regards to trauma and its treatment. And we are finding out complex trauma or DESNOS (extreme stress not otherwise specified) is much more common than a diagnosis of simple PTSD.
PTSD was originally developed as a diagnosis in the 1970s to explain the symptomology of Vietnam veterans. Research has shown that men are traumatized most frequently by accidents, war, assaults, and natural disasters, single event occurrences. Women, on the other hand, are most frequently traumatized by childhood sexual abuse. B.A. van der Kolk (2005) reported that between 17 and 33% of women in the general population had histories of sexual-physical abuse while women in psychiatric treatment reported 35 to 50%.
