Last Updated 8/8/2016
Research around PTSD being a holistic or spiritual phenomenon is still fairly recent (in the US). It began when practitioners realized more and more that Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) did not work well at all with PTSD. Researchers began looking elsewhere for answers to the issue(s) and its apparent prevalence in the US. They soon discovered that PTSD has been with us since the dawn of history, and had been dealt with striking success in many cultures.
Recent history seems to confirm this line of thinking. Various rituals, borrowed from various “traditional” cultures has shown promise as well as holistic healing modalities. We embrace these solutions both because of personal experience around their efficacy and the fact that they intuitively make sense. We’ll stick with them for as long as they demonstrate their efficacy and nothing better comes along. We’re not married to any particular “tradition”, we’re searching for what works, and when we find it, we keep on searching anyway. Some of the heavy hitters in this arena are: Ed Tick who wrote War and the Soul as well as Warrior’s Return and Johnathan Shay, MD, author of Achilles in Viet Nam and Odysseus in America. Dr Tick’s books should be required reading for anyone who wants to have anything to do with PTSD (as they are in this outfit.