Online Therapy for PTSD: Does It Really Work?
While most commonly attributed to military veterans, PTSD can affect anyone regardless of age, ethnicity or religion. It’s now thought that about three and a half percent of all adults in the U.S. alone suffer from PTSD, and it’s also estimated that one in eleven people will develop PTSD at some point in their life.
What is PTSD?
PTSD, short for post traumatic stress disorder, is an anxiety disorder in which people have severely troubling feelings and thoughts about an experience that they had in the past. This can go on for months or even years after the initial traumatic incident has ended.
Most commonly, people with PTSD will relive their traumatic incident through nightmares, flashbacks or disturbing images and sounds. They will often feel fear, depression, sadness or even anger when they relive their traumatic situations.
People with PTSD will often try to stay away from people or places that might remind them of their traumatic incidents, and they may even be easily startled by little things. A sudden noise, or an unexpected touch may cause them to jump, as many times people with PTSD are constantly on edge from the disorder.
Symptoms of PTSD
While the symptoms of PTSD normally begin within weeks or months of the initial traumatic incident, they can sometimes take years to begin to show up. PTSD symptoms can vary greatly in their severity from person to person. Depending upon the severity of their symptoms, they can often interfere with people’s professional and social interactions, and can hinder their normal day to day activities.
Below are the most common symptoms of PTSD:
Memories and Flashbacks
Normally people with PTSD are troubled byt disturbing flashbacks and memories of their traumatic event(s). These may come in the form of flashbacks or nightmares, and are often almost as intense as when the initial traumatic occurrence happen for the very first time. These memories will often cause feelings of fear, anxiety, guilt, anger or otherwise and will sometimes be accompanied by physical symptoms like panic attacks, headaches, chills or the shakes, increased heart rate among others.
Mood Swings
While PTSD will typically show itself in the form of traumatic flashbacks, nightmares and the like, one of it’s less than obvious symptoms are mood swings. These may or may not even appear to be related to the initial traumatic event. Generally, these are overall negative moods and feelings. People with PTSD related mood swings will normally feel shut off from others, helpless, hopeless or just all around bad in general. These feelings are typically accompanied by feelings of shame and guilt, and there may also be thoughts about suicide.
Behavioral Changes
Also known as arousal symptoms in the medical community, another of the symptoms of PTSD are behavioral changes. This will typically cause a person to act or react to things much differently than they would have before they had developed PTSD.
An example of this would be if someone was always very careful with their money, but now is a very frivolous spender who goes on crazy shopping sprees. Another example could be a person who was always very calm, who is now constantly nervous and on edge.
This can also cause difficulty in concentrating on things, feelings of being unsafe while doing simple day to day things, and trouble sleeping at night.
Avoidance
There are a few different types of avoidance that a person with PTSD may experience. This can include someone trying to avoid people that are related to their initial traumatic event, or a general avoidance of all people. Normally causing people to feel lonely or alone, avoidance can make them try to isolate themselves from others. (Source)
What Causes PTSD?
PTSD is normally caused by a very disturbing or traumatic event or it can also develop after someone has endured a long period of stress or fear (such as with military veterans who were in combat for any length of time).
PTSD is caused by experiencing an extremely stressful or frightening event, not by events that are just bothersome or unpleasant. Relationship breakups, arguments or problems at work don’t normally cause any long term psychological damage.
People are likely to develop PTSD from extreme experiences like rape, injury, physical or severe psychological abuse, and real or perceived threat of death, among other things.
You can develop post-traumatic stress disorder when you go through, see or learn about an event involving actual or threatened death, serious injury or sexual violation.
It is now believed that one in three people who suffer a traumatic event will develop some form of PTSD. Although this is generally the case, it’s not known why some people develop PTSD while other people do not.
It is thought that there are various factors that may make some people more susceptible to PTSD, and therefore more likely to develop the disorder. Genetic traits may play a role in a person’s chances of developing PTSD, and women are almost twice as likely to develop PTSD than men.
Though there are many theories about PTSD, there haven’t been enough thorough studies to 100% support any of them. Even with all of the research we have today, doctors are still not sure why some people develop PTSD while others do not.
Most likely, PTSD is a complicated mix of any of the following factors: Violent situations, accidents, military combat situations, rape or physical abuse, threats to life, inherited mental health conditions, chemical reactions in the brain and other traumatic events or situations.
The PTSD Risk Factors
Combined with an extremely stressful or traumatic event, the following risk factors could increase the chances of someone developing PTSD: Existing mental health issues, drug abuse, a lack of support from family and friends after a traumatic event, a history of childhood abuse, a series of painful or traumatic events in a row, or being in poor physical health.
Does PTSD Run in the Family?
There is some evidence that PTSD may run in a family, or at least a few of the risk factors that may make a person likely to develop PTSD. Families with a history of mental illnesses like anxiety disorders or depression may be predisposed to PTSD, or at least be more likely to develop the disorder.
Also, families with a history of drug or alcohol abuse may also be more at risk for developing PTSD. Also, women are far more likely to develop PTSD than men are.
While primarily caused by trauma, PTSD is somewhat inheritable, yet the full role of genetics and PTSD has not yet been thoroughly researched by the medical community. The only evidence that has been studied in this fashion to date is in relation to small studies of twins and other genetic factors.
A few things that recent research has shown is that there is clearly a predisposition to PTSD in some people’s genetics, and up to thirty percent of the cases of people with PTSD are related to genetics alone. One study presented evidence that sets of identical twins were much more likely to develop the disorder after a trauma or extreme event.
What Triggers PTSD?
Typically, a PTSD episode will be triggered by those sights and sounds that that remind the person of their initial traumatic event, or make them feel like they are actually reliving the event. While it is also possible for these flashbacks to be triggered by smells or other stimuli, sights and sounds that are similar to a person’s initial traumatic event account for the majority of PTSD episodes.
How can You Overcome Your PTSD Triggers?
In most cases, PTSD doesn’t get better on it’s own. If left untreated, PTSD will normally persist for years to come. Studies have shown that PTSD is reversible and symptoms can be greatly improved through support and proper treatment.
Studies show that Online Therapy may be Better than Traditional, In Person Treatment
Over the past few years, as technology has improved and more online therapy platforms emerged, more and more people are switching to online counseling instead of face to face counseling. The mental health industry has praised online therapy, and new studies are starting to show that online counseling may be not only more convenient, but more effective than traditional forms of treatment. (Source)
One of the main benefits of online counseling platforms is the convenience, as getting treatment online opens up a whole new set of options on exactly how and when you receive therapy.
Regardless of how busy your schedule is, you can easily make enough time for counseling online. On many platforms you can have a session day or at night, sometimes 24 hours a day. Not only that, but since you don’t even need to leave home, there’s no need to spend time traveling to and from your appointments.
Another plus to online therapy is by far the cost. Online treatment will not only save most people a lot of money, but it even opens up treatment options for many people who wouldn’t have otherwise been able to afford any treatment at all.
Online counseling costs a mere fraction of expensive face to face counseling, which can run into the hundreds per session. A few online therapy platforms even offer an mobile app so that you can still get counseling on vacation or when you’re on the go.
One reason that so many people favor online therapy vs. in person is the high level of privacy that it offers. Instead of sitting across from a local therapist which can be awkward at times, online treatment allows you to get treatment from a licensed therapist who could be across the country.
Not only does this give many people the comfort to really open up to their therapist, but you’ll never have an unexpected run in with your therapist in your off time. This also makes it both fast and simple to get a new therapist if for some reason you don’t like your current one.
In case you might think otherwise, all reputable online therapy platforms only use real licensed professionals as their therapists. This is true of all of the well known platforms, as well as the ones that we reviewed below.
All of their therapists and counselors must be professionally licensed, hold the proper educational degrees and have years of experience practicing in the field. All reputable therapy platforms require strict proof of all of the above.
The Best Online Therapy Choices for Treatment of PTSD
Betterhelp
One of the well known online counseling platforms, Betterhelp offers an easy to use user experience and boasts a system that automatically matches new clients up with who they believe to be the most qualified therapist for their individual needs.
Their system offers counseling sessions through live chats online, phone calls or other video chat options. While they have received quite a few good reviews online, it is worth noting that they are somewhat more expensive than some of the other online platforms. That being said, they’re still a lot cheaper then traditional, face to face counseling.
All of Betterhelp’s counselors are professionally licensed in their state of residence, and must show proof of a Master’s degree or above. They must also have more than 2,000 hours of experience and must have also been practicing for at least 3 years.
Another quickly growing online counseling platform, Online Therapy has hundreds of great reviews on the web. Their standard counseling plan offers a weekly, one on one session of 30 minutes and unlimited messaging with your therapist throughout the rest of the week.
Online Therapy is my personal favorite online treatment platform, as I found their counselors to be both warm and professional and their user interface easy to use. After contacting them, they agreed to give my readers a 20% discount off your first month of therapy if you sign up through this link.
Maybe you’ve heard of Talkspace by now, as they have a few pretty big, national ad campaigns. Talkspace offers their clients unlimited messaging with their personal therapist, and features a mobile phone app so that you can ask questions to or keep in contact with your counselor at any time .
To date they’ve treated more than 1 million clients, with good reviews across the web. They’re a good choice for cost effective treatment and have a pretty intuitive web site, making them another good choice for online treatment.
There are a lot of benefits to each platform, so regardless of if you try Betterhelp, Online Therapy or Talkspace remember to be patient when it comes to your treatment. Effective treatment for PTSD doesn’t happen overnight, you can greatly improve over time so be vigilant and stick with your treatment plan. Go easy on your self and stick with it, in time you might even surprise yourself. I wish you all the best with your treatment goals.
