Why this matters:
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is an increasingly difficult mental health issue, especially in countries with many people engaged in warfare, or exposed to torture and violence, or faced with disruption of everything familiar to them in areas plagued with strife.
Taking United States Veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan as an example, the rates of suicide, family violence, depression, anxiety and substance abuse are unacceptably high and increasing, despite yeoman efforts of the Veteran's Administration to provide services.
PTSD also afflicts victims of natural and man-made disasters, such as the huge earthquake and tsunami in Japan in 2011, or fires, or the stresses that accompany economic challenges.
And resolviing PTSD is especially pressing to salvage a young generation -- children and young adults who are frozen by fear and anxiety and unable to pursue a productive life because they do not know how to get over major traumatic events in their young lives.
In a world in which PTSD rates are rising and no treatment that is truly effective and sustainable in curing PTSD (although some extant treatments provide partial relief and reasonable coping mechanisms), the need is clear for a simple, straightforward treatment that will set people free from PTSD to pursue their lives at peace.
Coming Home to Peace, an approach to PTSD developed by William F. Pettit, Jr., MD, with Judith A. Sedgeman, EdD, at West Virginia University offers an answer. We are eager to conduct pilot programs with this promising approach to resolving PTSD.
Not only does PTSD place an enormous financial burden on health care systems all over the globe, the cost in quality of life, engagement in a better future, and leadership for the next generations is huge.
