Q&A: Post-Traumatic Stress - Rabbi Daniel Schonbuch

[Music] welcome to the show my name is rabbi Daniel Sean buff I'm a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist based here in New York and around the world via Skype I received many questions from listeners around the world and these questions vary in intensity and have interest I'm going to share with you today some questions they had about people that have experienced trauma in their life dear rabbi Sean ba I've been watching with a lot of interests your videos through the net I have a question for advice I've gone through a long period of psychoanalysis after a violent breakdown that followed a prolonged period of stress this happened when I worked in an organization that didn't want me any longer and who fired me I had to stop all activity and build myself again with Hashem help a very long process which day I considered a gift I could do chuhwa and since that time have become worthless economically and I'm suffering financially as well however there's a point that no therapy could correct I can't stand hearing loud noises when doors are closing or windows are clapping it can drive me into madness I understand you practice something called EMDR would that work for me dear listener you're asking a very important question it sounds like you went through a very difficult experience in your job and somehow that experience turns in into what we call post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD how do we know this because you're reacting to noises whether loud noises or strange noises that are rattling you shaking you up and making you feel very overwhelmed but I want to tell you that there's help on the way and let's first understand the nature of post-traumatic stress and why unfortunately many people suffer from PTSD in our world post-traumatic stress is more commonly understood to be something which comes from war for example soldiers that have been in battle in Israel people who have seen terror sack students somebody who's been in or near 9/11 the United States somebody that has experienced war in Afghanistan or Iraq where they witnessed people being killed or something that's just been in a car accident or has been abused will often experience post-traumatic stress what is PTSD PTSD is really the reliving of things which occurred to somebody in the past for an example like you're mentioning you hear a loud clap where you hear the slam of the door and perhaps this is reminding you of something you experienced while being fired or living with a very difficult situation in your organization so reliving is part of the experience of PTSD sometimes people have what we call arousal they'll get highly emotional when they have memories of something that happened in their past these are very powerful things some people have what we call arousal meaning they get highly emotional very angry very anxious or extremely sad when they experience something that reminds them of the past other people have negative thoughts and feelings and just feel something's really wrong in their lives while other people start going to panic attacks the heart starts racing out of control they start sweating they start hyperventilating breathing really quickly these are all signs that the person has post-traumatic stress disorder and this was a problem for many many years and unfortunately many people never got help until about 32 years ago a woman named Francine Shapiro a doctor of psychology was herself traumatized early in her life and she was walking somewhere one day and she started moving her eyes back and forth left and right left and right and she was processing her trauma and she found after a few minutes of eye movements while going through a trauma step by step she was actually able to reduce the traumatic feelings she was having she developed a system called EMDR which means eye movement desensitization and reprocessing this is a powerful form of therapy which over thousands of therapists including myself have trained to help people with trauma what are we trying to do during EMDR and but to understand that we have to stand what happens during trauma as well at the moment of trauma whether you lost your job or you witness a terror attack or yourself is physically or emotionally hurt by someone at that very split-second when you experience the trauma your brain goes into overdrive or overload people often experience a lot of adrenaline which is a hormone which causes anxiety in the body they're flooding with pay in the flooding with emotion they can barely make sense of what happened in a trauma so at that moment that memory of the trauma kind of shatters it doesn't get put away in your brain in a calm way let me give you an example of a smaller type of pain which could be filed away in your brain and you could sleep it off let's say you had a bad day at work you stubbed your toe you missed your bus it was raining and your boss yelled at you okay not a very great day and you're just feeling overwhelmed and a bit sad but you go home you talk to your friends or family members you watch something have a good dinner take a warm shower go to sleep you wake up next day you're ready to start what happened there what happened was you actually filed away calmly the memory of the unpleasant things that happened to you during that day but what if something really painful happened to you what if you were in a terrible car accident what if you witnessed somebody be heard in a terrorist attack what if somebody you love suddenly died that pain is an overwhelming pain the human mind cannot really understand at that moment what's going on so what a person does is they split they try to repress and push away that pain may try to move on with their lives but it's really hard and a few months a few years later suddenly the reminders of that pain that's post-traumatic stress disorder why does it happen because the person couldn't file away that memory of the trauma calmly what is EMDR EMDR helps a person reprocess the trauma with a trained therapist and as an adult now or you as a child a teenager a person could look back a little more objectively to try to understand their trauma and in dr we go through the trauma again over and over with the person while their eyes are moving back and forth and let me assure you it might sound a bit unique and strange but i can promise you the results are quite remarkable after a few sessions many people have scientifically reported in reduction in their post-traumatic stress therefore it's been scientifically proven to help thousands of people overcome PTSD and it sounds like from your question that you've asked to me that you are also suffering from a form of post-traumatic stress perhaps it's due to your difficult experience you had in the organization in which you got fired or perhaps is other traumas in your life maybe your self witness violence or terror or something that died in your family you never fully process the trauma and now with being fired the trauma is just reemerging and therefore things like noises and door slamming are making you highly agitated but I suggest you try to find somebody who can do EMDR in person and if not Brass somebody via skype can help you as well welcome to this new series in hebrew called marriage matters my name is rabbi Daniel Samba and I'm a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist based in New York and around the world via Skype on this important series I will be answering your questions you have about marriage relationships dating parenting and about any issue during the family relationships but more than what I have to say I want to hear what you have to say so please email to this address and sending your questions and I'll try to answer as many questions on this Michelle you