Slashdot Mirror
Trauma Pill Might Help Ease Emotional Pain
FrenchyinOntario writes "Canada's Globe & Mail is reporting that scientists are currently testing a 'trauma pill' that might help the victims of rape, the battlefield and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) forget or perhaps simply never store the memories of what happened to them the way they are stored normally immediately after the traumatic event, when the brain overloads itself with stress hormones. It's theorized that the pills could eventually be handed out to victims of Katrina-like disasters as well as returning war veterans. Critics wonder what kind of an effect it would have on a victim not to work through the pain like people have traditionally done."
The article says that it does not erase memories or prevent the memories. It simply helps keep the memory from becoming a PTSD type memory - where certain stimuli actually cause you to relive the event.
The victim will still have her memory - and would probably be in a better place to accurately recall that memory.
Besides, we already have drugs that will cause blackouts so that someone can rape someone else with them having little or no memory. Just look up "date rape drug".
"The eternal sunshine of a spotless mind" seems very truthfull all of a sudden. Good film too.
Already use this a lot for heart patients, not a dramatic new drug, haven't seen many psychological effects. I am a hospice nurse so emotional trauma goes with the territory. We have a different drug that causes loss of memory we use in people undergoing surgery. A significant percentage of people actually come out of anaestheisa during surgery and have to be put back under. This drug is given in case that happens so they don't remember. Also used for "conscious sedation" type surgeries. Stickler is that it does not work for everyone, some people still remember the events. Just an FYI.
Wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair and all the terrible things that happen to us, come because we actually dese
Date rape drug? Largely a story made up by media looking for a new panic. In the vast majority of cases, the drug causing blackouts that rapists take advantage of is alcohol.
If you look at treatments for PTSD, you'll see that psychotherapy hasn't been proven to be helpful.
On the contrary - a brief scholar.google.com search has a number of articles by researchers suggesting that psychotherapy helps a number of people with PTSD, whatever the cause may be.
The National Center for PTSD has information for Veterans Affairs staff on how to treat returning Iraq War Vets, and it includes mental health counseling, including individual counseling, group therapy, and family therapy. (Disclaimer: I am a former VA psych intern)
"What do you think?" "I think 'What, do you think?!'"
The Dalai Lama is only a leading figure in a particular branch of Buddhism, the Tibetan part of the Vajrayana school. And, FWIW, he supposedly reincarnates because he's the current incarnation of the bodhisattva Avalokitesvara. Bodhisattvas forgo their own enlightenment so help others acheive their own.
Are you saying rape victims should be forced to endure PTSD symptoms for the rest of their lives -
....."
I think my experiences are a part of me, the good the bad and the ugly - they are there and even though they may hurt a lot I want them as a part of my life. I grow from these memories - I like my pain it makes me who I am today. If I could forget any bad part of my life - I would be a smaller person for it. Rape is a tragedy, but yet - it may help if the victim remembered what happend. Like for example "maybe i shouldn't walk on 10th and broad at 3 AM"...or more importantly, "the guy who attacked me looked like
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
One of the major discoveries of last century was just how pervasive and powerful psychic trauma is to people, especially soldiers, police officers, and emergency rescue personel.
It is way, way, WAY more common than was ever suspected, has NOTHING to do with one's strength of character or moral fibre, and can be crippling in ways that physical injury can never be.
There is NO choice in who will wind up with PTSD, and little to no way to predict when a particular individual will come down with it, or how strongly. It is insidious, often nearly invisible, and powerful.
I have seen many friends struggle with the effects of PTSD, and it is not at all a laughing matter.
Happily, there are techinques to help people deal with it, and to lessen the impact it has on their lives. Two books I highly recommend are On Killing and On Combat, by Lt Col Dave Grossman. These books are, to the best of my understanding, the first books to really deal with the psychic cost of killing, and how to minimize it if you are forced to deal in violence.
They aren't perfect - Col Grossman makes much of the desensitizing nature of certain video games (which I think is overblown) and parts of On Combat start to read like advertisements for his consulting agency, but these are required reading for anybody in the military or law enforcement trades - or for anybody who thinks that PTSD victims in any way choose their fate.
DG
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
You might want to check up on such things before you make yourself look quite so ignorant, and quite so, um, prejudiced.
"It is the ultimate goal of Buddhist practice and implies a release from the cycle of deaths and rebirths"
ref: Parinirvana
"When a person who has realized nirvana dies, his death is referred as his parinirvana, his fully passing away, as his life was his last link to the cycle of death and rebirth (samsara), and he will not be reborn again"
ref: Nirvana
"The aim of Buddhist practice is to end the cycle of rebirth called samsara (Pli, Sanskrit), by awakening the practitioner to the realization of true reality, the achievement of liberation (nirvana). To achieve this, one should purify and train the mind and act according to the laws of karma, of cause and effect: perform positive actions, and positive results will follow."
ref: Buddhism.
What part of "cycle of deaths and rebirths" and "laws of Karma" do you not understand? OP mentioned both Nirvana and Buddhism. In the Buddhist world-view, how does one reach Nirvana exactly?