Monday, February 20, 2012

Using Light to Unlock the PTSD Trap

I've been hearing bits and pieces about EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing), a relatively new approach to treating people with severe PTSD. This story from the Telegraph, about how EMDR has helped a UK army nurse, is interesting. The account of how Hilary Horton got her PTSD is also a reminder that pscyhological wounds can be inflicted on support trades as well as on front line personnel. Worth reading. MP+



No-nonsense nurse: Hilary Horton at Al Amarah base in Iraq, where she dealt with the bodies of six military poilcemen Photo: GABRIEL SZABO/GUZELIAN


By Clare Goldwin
7:20AM GMT 20 Feb 2012
Hilary Horton has the no-nonsense attitude you’d expect from someone who was an intensive care nurse for 20 years, has worked in women’s prisons and is a former Air Force reservist. So it is a surprise to learn that five years of her life were virtually destroyed by constantly reliving one of the Iraq war’s grimmest episodes.

The former Air Force nurse was responsible for the bodies of six Royal Military Policemen who were murdered as they manned a police station in southern Iraq in June 2003, a killing spree that became notorious. Hilary was badly affected by her experience, and in 2009 she was diagnosed with severe post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), suffering regular flashbacks, fits of weeping and loss of confidence.

Read the whole piece here.
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1 comment:

  1. stylerFebruary 29, 2012 at 10:47 a.m.

    Thanks for sharing this. In my line of work, firefighting, PTSD is usually treated by self-medication (usually in the forms of alcohol and hedonism) and flat denial that anything is wrong. I'm sure it's much the same in your world.

    In the strange way things work, the terrible things we learn during the wars we fight may bring healing in less foreign, but just as tragic, arenas.

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