Room Creativity

1. To meet the room creativity requirement I plan on making a relaxing environment by using aroma therapy and having lamps instead of using the lights. In every psychologist's office I have ever walked into there is a calm and relaxing atmosphere. I believe this is important to making people feel safe and comfortable. 
2. For my answer one (Biological Approach) I want to have people find the spot in the brain that is responsible for each action. I think I could print out some accurately draw picture of the brain and have them label them. For my second answer (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) I want to give them a worksheet.

Answer 2

What is the most effective way to treat PTSD?

If a person is suffering with PTSD, then they should receive Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy to help them cope with their emotions and feelings of loss of control.

Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy is one of the fastest working therapies. It takes about 16 sessions. (National Association of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapists) This is great for people who cannot afford going talk therapy that can take years before any progress is developed, and it also helps people get back on their feet at a more reasonable speed.

Focuses on establishing a feeling of control on how one feels and reacts rather than external forces. This allows people to cope with guilt, and get past their experience and think about the future, which are often major obstacles with PTSD patients.(Post Traumatic Stress Disorder by Peggy Thomas)

Because CBT uses homework assignments and stresses the importance of practicing the skills learned, the knowledge acquired is learned more effectively. It’s like trying to learn a social science concept; it doesn’t really make sense until you relate it back to the real world. (The Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Sourcebook by Glenn R. Schiraldi)

The Product

As of March, the product of my senior project is that I can now look at a traumatic narrative and not feel as emotionally involved with it. This is a product of both the information that I have been gathering for the past six months and peer mediation.

The research I have been doing has been helping look at PTSD as a medical problem. It is almost like when a small child breaks their arm. Of course, the child is going to be in a great deal of emotional distress, but unless someone can give that child medical attention neither the arm nor the distress will be relieved. Before looking into the medical aspects of PTSD, I could only see myself as a person who wanted nothing more but to relieve the child from the emotional distress. Now, I feel I am at a state where I want to do both, because I realized how connected they are. Peer mediation helped me get started on the idea that what may seem like something minor for me can be very important for another person. This reminded me of a video I watched about the Baby Briana Lopez story (a law-changing child abuse case from New Mexico) where one of the first responders said, "You'll either become too callous, or you'll become jello. You can't do this job well unless you're in the middle." This helped me get more to the middle. Now, I can look at a traumatic narrative and see what symptoms it may produce, or listen to people's problems without thinking they are over-exaggerating.