Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

Do you suffer from:
  • Unexplained Panic Attacks or Anxiety Attacks?

  • Recurrent Terrifying Nightmares?

  • Outbursts of Rage or Grief that you cannot explain?

  • Flashes of memory of childhood emotional, physical, or sexual abuse?

  • Heart stopping Terror when nothing is occuring to cause it?

If you are, you may have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

In simple terms, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is any debilitating or highly stressful emotional disorder or condition that occurs some time after the original event that caused the condition. This event was always emotionally traumatic and may or may not have involved physical trauma to the person suffering from PTSD. PTSD is a prolonged series of intense and possibly delayed reactions to an overwhelmingly stressful event; the reactions may be so intense as to cause spontaneous outbursts of emotion or emotional shutdown and may include partial or complete memory blockage.

What kinds of events cause PTSD?
Once called shell shock or battle fatigue, PTSD was first thought to affect only war veterans, but it is now realized that PTSD can be caused by any overpowering traumatic incident. These include car, ship, or train wrecks, airplane crashes, or collapse of a building, natural disasters such as floods, tornadoes, or earthquakes, personal violence such as a mugging, rape, kidnapping, or torture, or being trapped in a cave-in, an elevator, or held captive. The triggering event may be something that threatened the person's life or the life of someone close to him or her. The original terms for PTSD were War Neurosis and Acute Stress Disorder. Other conditions closely related to PTSD that affect our bodies and psyches in similar ways are: Anxiety Disorder, Somatization Disorder, Severe Paroxysmal Hypertension, Pseudopheochromocytoma, non-epileptic attack disorder. All of these involve hidden emotional trauma, trauma that can be released with SHEN.

What are some of the indicators of PTSD?
Unexplained outbursts of: anger, aggression, grief, and/or irritability are common. There may be persistent depression, despair, shame, guilt, feelings of betrayal, deep loss, and/or hopelessness.

PTSD may include persistent anxiety, irritability, inability to be close to people, fear of innocuous places or things, loss of ability to feel emotions, consistent overreaction to insignificant events, insomnia, and/or poor concentration.

There may be flashbacks or half images of the event or episodes of overwhelming anxiety, Panic Attacks and/or terrifying nightmares where the sufferer is helpless. Sometime there are unexplained physical problems, such as eating disorders or unreasonable physical pain, with or without any emotional condition. Physical symptoms such as headaches, gastrointestinal distress, immune system problems, dizziness, chest pain, or discomfort in other parts of the body are common in people with PTSD.

According to the World Health Organization, symptoms of PTSD generally surface within six months after the trauma however, this is not always true; some traumas do not become recognizable until many years later.

Is it possible to have PTSD and not remember the event?
Sometimes the originating event was so terrifying or shocking that the conscious portion of the brain completely blanked out any memory of it. Sometimes the memory will begin to surface during therapy focused on one's past. Often the cause may be vaguely remembered but the details in and surrounding the event are not. Sometimes the connection between PTSD and the original causal event is not evident, or the symptoms may not surface until years after the event.

If I remember the event, will my symptoms go away?
Not necessarily, the brain has little control over the emotions or over physical pain that has an emotional basis, or where physical pain was part of the emotionally charged event. Residual Chronic Pain, pain without current medical cause is common.

Often the anniversary of the event can provoke severe traumatic reactions.
Example: The late Dr. Norwood Russell Hanson, who was Professor of Philosophy at Yale University, had been a fighter pilot on a Navy carrier during World War Two. During one battle, he was unable to fly on a mission with his squadron because of a severe cold. Every one of his squadron mates was killed on that mission. He was never able to get over feeling guilty for not having died with his comrades. Until he died in 1967 in the crash of his World War II Grumman F8F fighter aircraft, Hanson was unable to get out of bed on the anniversaries of that ill-fated mission.

Does one get PSTD immediately or can the symptoms creep up slowly?
The symptoms usually creep up slowly. There seems to be a barrier that allows the person to function almost normally for a time before the symptoms start.

A Personal Example: When 9/11 occurred, I was at work at my computer when a friend called to tell me to turn on my TV, that a plane had crashed into one of the Twin Towers of the Trade Center. I turned it on, and as I was watching, I saw the second plane hit the other tower. I was horrified, as were we all. But, later that day I had to drive an hour from my office to make a presentation. I found I was able to turn my thoughts to the drive and made a very successful presentation. That evening I was surprised, and a little embarrassed, to realize that I had not been thinking of the tragedy during the afternoon while I was busy.

About three days later, I began to be unable to concentrate at work for more than two or three hours. I began wandering about, finally not able to work at all, not able to read or to do anything but remember the horror of the event. My soul was full of grief and I did not see how I could go on with my life or work.

My PTSD symptoms continued for another few days until I was able to connect with a SHEN practitioner who lifted the painful emotions from my body. Now I remember and discuss the terrible event and to go on with my life productively. Richard Pavek

How does SHEN Therapy help with PTSD?
In SHEN we do not think PTSD is a "mental disorder," it is an emotional condition and emotions are not 'mental'. SHEN theory operates on the principle that residue of emotional trauma from earlier in life is held deep inside the body where it influences the way we live our lives, and disrupts normal bodily functioning. When an event occurs that is similar to the originating event, it can aggravate the hidden emotions and cause them to flare up, worsening our behavior and exacerbating our physical problems. The painful emotional trauma is trapped in the body by the Auto-Contractile Pain Reflex (ACPR). Our long experience with PTSD shows it is the result of this hidden emotional trauma welling up from inside the body.

Just what is SHEN Therapy?

SHEN practice is a science-based form of biofield therapeutics that adheres to the physics of the biofield as deduced by Richard R. Pavek. When doing SHEN, we place our hands on your body in a series of precise, polarized locations that are indicated by the particular emotional condition you present and conform to biofield physics. This correctly focuses the qi (ch'i) from our hands so as to release the ACPR contractions trapping the painful emotions. In this way, SHEN safely lifts old, painful emotions to the surface where they disperse and leave.

Compared to other approaches to PTSD, SHEN is rapid. SHEN procedures bring the trauma to the surface and bring about its conclusion faster than other methods and with far less stress. Once the crippling emotions are dissipated, the person is again able to live his or her life normally.

How to tell if you have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder?
You have it, (according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders of the American Psychiatric Association) if the traumatic event is persistently re-experienced in one (or more) of the following ways:

• Recurrent and intrusive distressing recollections of the event, including images, thoughts, or perceptions.
• Recurrent distressing dreams of the event.
• Acting or feeling as if the traumatic event were recurring (includes a sense of reliving the experience, illusions, hallucinations, and dissociative flashback episodes, including those that occur on awakening or when intoxicated).
• Intense psychological distress at exposure to internal or external cues that symbolize or resemble an aspect of the traumatic event
• Physiological reactivity on exposure to internal or external cues that symbolize or resemble an aspect of the traumatic event

And you also have persistent avoidance of stimuli associated with the trauma and numbing of general responsiveness (not present before the trauma), as indicated by three (or more) of the following:

        •  Efforts to avoid thoughts, feelings, or conversations associated with the trauma

        •  Efforts to avoid activities, places, or people that arouse recollections of the trauma

        •  Inability to recall an important aspect of the trauma

        •  Markedly diminished interest or participation in significant activities

        •  Feeling of detachment or estrangement from others

        • Restricted range of affect (e.g., unable to have loving feelings)

        • Sense of a foreshortened future (e.g., does not expect to have a career, marriage,

          children, or a normal life span)

And you have persistent symptoms of increased arousal (not present before the trauma), as indicated by two (or more) of the following:

• Difficulty falling or staying asleep
• Irritability or outbursts of anger
• Difficulty concentrating
• Hypervigilance
• Exaggerated startle response

The disturbance causes clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.

Click here for more on PTSD from the National Institute of Mental Health: Reliving Trauma:

Click here for more information about: Emotions,  The Biofield,  ACPR.