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My wife was a medic in Afghanistan and is suffering from PTSD, including debilitating nightmares. She does not want to share her experiences with me. She needs therapy but had an unsuccessful experience with at the VA, and other therapists have long waiting lists. I’m not sure how much longer she can hold on. How can I help her? In this video, Dr. Klassen, an expert on mental health issues and treatment, shares a list of resources for mental health therapy and discusses the challenges of moral injury.

One of the most powerful aspects of the two-week immersive Road Home program is group therapy for veterans and service members. Along with the help of clinicians like Dr. Klassen these sessions, vets and service members in these sessions can share their experiences, questions, and perspectives in a safe space. Powerful transformations and healing can occur when one veteran, for example, can shed light on the experience of another, helping that individual better understand a trauma and change the narrative.

Cognitive processing therapy helps veterans and service members understand how their experience of a traumatic event may have changed how they see themselves, others, and the world. CPT, in particular, targets beliefs around "what ifs" or "should haves," which are inherently toxic and can result in feelings of guilt and shame that often keep a person stuck in the symptoms of PTSD. CPT can't change what happened, but it can help that person construct a new narrative that helps change how that person feels about the trauma.

Midway through the two-week immersive Road Home Program when veterans and service members have told their stories of their traumas several times and more details and context emerge with each telling, sometimes the "hot spots" surface. These hot spots are the parts of the trauma that are particularly provocative and upsetting, the memories and emotions that are keeping the person stuck. By focusing on those hot spots, clinicians can help accelerate the therapy and move the person toward healing.

It is a paradox that the harder we try not to think about something, the more we think about it. Memories and emotions related to trauma can only be suppressed for so long. It's like holding a beach ball under water. It's hard. You can do it until you can no longer do it. Trauma therapy, as offered during the Road Home Program, helps veterans and service members with PTSD bring their stories of trauma to the surface in a safe and controlled way and from there move toward healing.

Being involved in, witnessing, or learning about an event that seriously transgresses moral beliefs is quite different from experiencing trauma that can lead to PTSD. A lot can happen in war or military service that doesn't clearly fit into the definition of a traumatic event because war brings with it moments of ambiguous situations, many of which need to be acted upon in a split second. Clinicians like Dr. Klassen want people to know that one moment does not define you as a person forever; healing can occur from moral injury.

For many veterans and service members returning from deployment, not having their "team," their battle buddies around is very difficult. Everything seems to be about the individual. Capitalizing on this team unity mentality, providers at the Road Home Program understand that more healing will happen when people are working on individualized therapies as well as group therapies and activities. Once again, they have each other's backs.

The use of psychedelics for PTSD is an example of a therapeutic intervention that the medical field has, until lately, put to the side. There was no funding, nor research on the topic; now, medical professionals and researchers are looking into its potential use for PTSD and believe that, with specific focus, it may have a great benefit.

Treating service members and veterans with TBI and PTSD often includes complex and unique interventions and treatments. Based on their evidence-based guidelines and experiences working with thousands of people in their two-week immersive program, Home Base also focuses intentionally and systematically on assessing what the population needs once they leave the program and return to their communities. The more Home Base can help connect their participants with clusters of experts in their areas, the more long-term healing will occur.

Does success translate into riding a horse again, returning to your pre-military job as an accountant, or coaching your kid’s Little League team? Staff at the Home Base Program understand that what success looks like for one military member with TBI and/or PTSD may look 180-degrees different from that of another. Using evidence-based guidelines to drive their therapeutic regimens as well as applying lessons learned from helping thousands of people in the program, Home Base providers are not only fine-tuning what they do each day but also learning and creating the next generation of effective therapies.

Home Base’s two weeks of assessments and individualized therapies focused on treating veterans and services members with TBI and PTSD seems to be the “sweet spot” of time for this kind of immersive program. Staff in the program have seen lives changed, lives saved. They understand that the veteran experience is a unique one, hard for civilians to fully comprehend. Providing these men and women with the tailored interventions and therapies they need to enhance function in their day-to-day life is often as important as the bonding aspect of being with others who have had and continue to have similar experiences, challenges, and forward steps.