Alternative PTSD Therapies Gain Popularity Over Traditional Treatment
Many veterans who have given up on medication or exposure therapy find solace in activities such as scuba diving and yoga. Meanwhile, Reveal has launched a series looking back on the VA scandal and what happened after it all came to light.
The New York Times:
Scuba, Parrots, Yoga: Veterans Embrace Alternative Therapies For PTSD
The broad acceptance of PTSD after the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has posed an unexpected challenge. Acknowledging PTSD has only spurred a wide-ranging debate over the best way to treat it. Traditional medical approaches generally rely on drugs and controlled re-experiencing of trauma, called exposure therapy. But this combination has proved so unpopular that many veterans quit before finishing or avoid it altogether. This has given rise to hundreds of small nonprofits across the country that offer alternatives: therapeutic fishing, rafting and backpacking trips, horse riding, combat yoga, dogs, art collectives, dolphin swims, sweat lodge vision quests and parrot husbandry centers, among many, many others. (Philipps, 9/17)
Reveal:
No Choice: Failing America’s Veterans
Two years ago, the system that provides American veterans with health care was rocked by scandal when whistleblowers told the world that vets were dying while the Phoenix VA concealed them on a secret waiting list. Reveal revisits the scandal, then investigates what happened next, examining how a national effort to get veterans faster care turned Alaska’s homegrown health care system upside down, and how a deeply troubled VA hospital in Cincinnati responded to its own scandal by blaming the messengers. (Greenblatt, 9/17)