[libribook.com] Traumatic Scar Tissue Management 1st Edition

Clinical Consideration
Mainstream trauma treatment has paid scant attention to helping
terrified people to safely experience their sensations and emotions.
Medications such as serotonin reuptake blockers, Respiridol and
Seroquel increasingly have taken the place of helping people to deal
with their sensory world. However, the most natural way that we
humans calm our distress is by being touched. Touch, the most
elementary tool that we have to calm down, is proscribed from most
therapeutic practices. Yet you can’t fully recover if you don’t feel safe
in your skin. Therefore, I encourage all my trauma patients to engage
in some sort of bodywork, such as therapeutic massage
(van der Kolk 2014).
Van der Kolk’s clinical treatment approach, considered unconventional,
also includes therapeutic yoga (calming and getting in touch with
dissociated bodies), theatre, pranayama, chanting, martial arts, drumming,
dancing and singing.
Acute Stress Disorder (ASD) and PTSD
The major distinguishing factor between ASD and PTSD is the duration of
symptoms (Koren et al. 2002; Isserlin et al. 2008; DSM-V 2013).
ASD is recognized as a potentially transient disorder, whereas PTSD is
presumed to be a disorder that persists beyond a timeframe when the majority of
people will experience remission of severe reactions following trauma (Bonanno
et al. 2002, Lichtenthal et al. 2004, DSM-V 2013).
ASD
ASD is characterized by the development of severe anxiety, dissociative, and
other symptoms that occur within 1 month after exposure to an extreme
traumatic stressor such as an injury, unplanned or planned (surgery).