PTSD In Veterans

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In the study conducted by Halpern, Ferenschak, and Gillihan (2011), they attempted to interpret how effective the treatment of PTSD was among veterans who are treated at Veteran Affairs (VA) hospitals. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a mental illness that affects over 25% of the veterans that come back from Iraq. The diagnostic criteria of PTSD, “…includes distressing and debilitating symptoms comprised of re-experiencing trauma, emotional numbing, and hyper arousal,” (Halpern et al., 2011, pg. 573). After initiating twenty-four studies with a sample size of 1,742 participants, it was concluded that 66% of the patients that were treated in VA hospitals were in better condition than the patients who were in the control group. Out of the treatments done within the experimental group, exposure therapy was the best suited for treating PTSD in veterans (Halpern et al., 2011, …show more content…
The therapist waves his finger back and forth as the client continues to track it. EDMR allows the patient to, “…access and process traumatic memories and facilitate the desensitization of emotional distress, the reformulation of associated cognitions, and relief of accompanying physiological arousal,” (Albert and Thyler, 2009, pg. 2). Although there is extensive research on the effects of EDMR that concludes that it does reduce the symptoms of PTSD, the studies that were analyzed in this journal were not efficient. There was a copious amount of errors done by the experimenters. Due to a lack of statistical evidence, it was concluded that there wasn’t enough legitimate evidence that EDMR works as a treatment option for combat veterans with PTSD (Albright and Thyler, 2009, pg.