LANGLEY AIR FORCE BASE, Va. –
"Your life is going to be different," Navy Cmdr. Beverly Dexter tells her patients. "Not broken or damaged, but different."
Commander Dexter, a clinical psychologist at Naval Medical Center Portsmouth, is one of about 100 healthcare professionals who attended a conference on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder here March 25 to 27.
Participants came from medical centers around the region: Langley, the Hampton VA Hospital, Portsmouth Naval Hospital, Norfolk substance abuse program, Fort Lee, Va., and Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, N.C.
Drs. Patricia Resick and Candice Monson, from the National Center for PTSD, led the workshop. The session was tailored specifically for treating veterans and military personnel, and aimed at educating healthcare providers on Cognitive Processing Therapy.
Cognitive Processing Therapy is a 12-session therapy system founded on a theory of PTSD that focuses on how the traumatic event is interpreted and coped with by a person trying to regain a sense of control in his or her life, according to Resick and Monson's manual on CPT.
Part of the therapy includes assuring patients that coping with traumatic events is not a reflection of character but a normal occurrence, said Dr. Monson.
"We emphasize that PTSD is an externally caused, but very treatable condition," she said. "We are reaching out to help patients figure out how to make sense of their experiences."
Providers in Langley's Behavioral Health Clinic are implementing CPT, which will also be used by healthcare providers in deployed environments, according to Maj. Melissa O'Neill, Behavioral Health flight commander.