How Biblical PTSD Counseling Helps
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is the diagnosis used in the mental health field to describe someone who shows symptoms or behaviors for a month or longer, after having experienced or witnessed a potentially traumatic event or series of potentially traumatic events. In PTSD counseling, a traumatic event is defined as one that threatens death, serious injury, or sexual violation.Symptoms are grouped around four different categories: intrusion symptoms, avoidance symptoms, negative changes in mood or cognitive behavior, and alterations in arousal activity (changes in emotional and physiological responses that often occur after experiencing trauma).While these labels are to some benefit, biblical PTSD counseling is helpful in taking away some of the “medical jargon” around what is essentially a “being human” issue, and one that people have struggled with since time began.Ways That Biblical PTSD Counseling Could HelpHere are some ways in which biblical PTSD counseling provides a more comprehensive solution over secular psychology:Biblical PTSD counseling removes the “disorder” labelIt can be devastating for a person seeking out PTSD counseling to receive a diagnosis that makes them feel as though there is no cure. They might feel hopeless and helpless, with the term “disorder” sending a message that they are weak or irrevocably damaged. A trained counselor using biblical insight will assert from the beginning that post-traumatic stress is a normal and common reaction to an extreme situation.It is comforting to hear that far from being disproportionate to what has been experienced, it is in line with a human response to things that are not part of God’s good creation. They are things that are the result of and occurring in a broken world; they will not be present in heaven one day, where “death will be no more; grief, crying, and pain will be no more, because the previous things have [...]
