A Trauma Treatment Primer for Parents and Families [Episode 5]

12/07/18 • 52 min

Trauma - What does it look like? ...Someone I love is suffering and it’s tearing me apart . . . How do I help?

In todays’s episode Tom dives into trauma, treatment, and recovery...what it is, how it happens, and how you, the parent or family, can do everything in your power to understand it . . . and help someone recover from it.

Tom introduces his listeners to Family Psych Consumer’s resident trauma expert, Dr Debbie Orr, and taps into her 30+year history as a trauma treatment expert to explain how trauma changes the person and the brain. With her quiet, deliberate manner, Debbie walks you through what to look for - and how to cope - when a loved one’s traumatic event completely overwhelms their life.

Dr Debbie describes in detail how a singular or series of traumatic events slowly change the psychological, emotional, and physical health of a loved one. Tom and Debbie delve into how trauma experts approach and treat trauma, and the characteristics of quality care in this most intimate and complex area. Most importantly to his listeners, Tom discusses how family recovery can happen as part of the treatment for the traumatized person.

Trauma - What does it look like? ...Someone I love is suffering and it’s tearing me apart . . . How do I help?

Previous Episode

Doing the Impossible - Hospitalizing Someone You Love Against Their Will[Episode 4]

Due to popular demand, Tom jumped into one of the hottest (translation: painful and confusing) topics for parent and family caregivers: having to use a mobile crisis team to get a loved one into the hospital against their will - all in the interest of keeping them safe.

While this topic requires A LOT of coverage, Tom gives his listeners a primer on the things that really matter: first, who are the players, what are their roles, and what are the rules of engagement. Secondly, what does the parent or family caregiver need to know, plan for, and expect in this otherwise highly chaotic, overwhelming event (that usually concludes with helping the cops handcuff some you love and take them to the hospital). And why is this necessary? Because the family or mental health providers have concluded that their psychotic thinking or despair makes them a certain risk to kill themselves or endanger the community.

Tom wants this episode and its content to be a digestible “how to” about dealing with this most dreaded of all interventions for families dealing with a mental illness. He reviews his crisis care checklist and rules of engagement so the event can be as tolerable and as successful as possible. From knowing the law, to dealing with the police, and managing their thinking and stress, Tom walks his listeners through this most painful and courageous act of love.

Next Episode

Visiting a Psychiatric Hospital – Primer for First Timers, and How to Handle Yourself AND Help the Patient When You Are There [Episode 6]

One of the most mystical but misunderstood places in the medical world is the psychiatric hospital; this place has been dehumanized in our modern culture, and has a plethora of characters..the “looney bin, padded rooms, “crazytown”, all making it seem like some scary, even fascinating place. If it were a reality show , most viewers would expect the voyeur rush of watching an addict freaking out and destroying their room. But in real life, the “psych unit” is a really pretty boring place. And It IS a place where everything that matters happens quietly and unspoken – a place full of people who are quietly in distress, some really suffering, but all experiencing a brain injury that needs healing.

But for families who have never been, there is are basic rules ways to behave to meaningfully participate in the recovery process. Tom take his listeners on a visit and explains the ways to get the most out of your visits to your loved one who is there. This episode walks you through a how-to plan for this most intimate and consequential of hospital stays for you and your loved one.