Whether you got Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms due to traumatic professional experiences, or whether this is due to trauma's in your personal life - the results and the approach to integral and holistic recovery are the same.

Effective Recovery From PTSD and Trauma Symptoms

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Leading to a life with a

good Quality Of Life After PTSD

There is no news that Stress and Trauma and, therefore, relatively also PTSD symptoms are increasing worldwide. Thus, professionally and non-professionally, people are confronted with shocking events. 

Many people lose their homes to significant storms. Many men, women, and children become refugees and flee war-torn countries. People are sexually abused, student fear is on the rise, executives through signing a confidential non-disclosure agreement are bullied out of a company, entrepreneurs experience sudden bankruptcy at the bank's hands, and much more.

A few numbers:

1. There are ±8.9 Mil working people in the Netherlands (CBS 2018).
2. There is an increase in the long-term sick - ±5% (±1Million people).
3. About 10 Mil people in the Netherlands suffer from a chronic illness, of which many are categorized as 'somatically insufficiently explained physical complaints'.
4. About 33% of the long-term sick have a psychological/mental cause (±300000 people).
5. More than half of the working population has a greatly increased risk of absenteeism due to stress complaints, overstrain or what is often unjustified is called 'burnout'.
6. More than 35% of the working population is regularly absent due to stress complaints, overstrain and what is often unjustified is called 'burnout'. The duration of absenteeism has also continued to increase in recent years.
7. Work stress causes ±7.5 Mil absenteeism days = ±21000 Full-time Equivalents (FTEs) each year.
8. About 1.5 million workers suffer from 'burnout' symptoms.
9. About 30000 - 40,000 people (estimated figure) suffer from occupational PTSD (including executive PTSD).
10. An unknown number of people suffer from non-occupational PTSD.

We distinguish different forms of stress:

1. Positive - Constructive Stress

Sometimes stress can be constructive and helpful. Constructive stress ensures that the body can grow and that we can achieve the results we want;

• For example, stress is used to enable a performance - a weightlifter who applies stress to lifting the weight, stops and then releases it.
• Consciously chosen relaxation by consciously “doing nothing”.
• Meditation.
• Self-induced positive feelings.

2. Negative, destructive (destructive) stress

Destructive and unhelpful stress leads to the breakdown of bodily systems – such as a body that can be destroyed over time under the weight of disease, or other stress-related damage. Possible causes;

• Physical (incl. severe burns)
• Accidents
• Falling
• Chemical
• Bacteria
• Viruses
• Hormones in food
• Heavy metals in food
• Hangovers after excessive alcohol consumption
• Very low or very high blood sugar levels
• Emotional
• Family tragedies
• Loss of e.g. (family) business, finances, job, marriage

All change is stressful and all stress causes the brain and therefore the body in an out of balance state. In contrast, self-regulation is a situation that we as humans strive for – a stable, predictable situation, in which we feel we have the means to sustain ourselves, to be calm and to be in a safe environment (a balanced stat often referred to as Homeostasis). Therefore, when this changes, it always leads to a certain amount of stress – positive or negative stress in our consciousness, our nervous system and, of course, therefore in our body.

At the biochemical level in your body you cannot tell the difference between lifting weights in the gym or running away from a tiger, all this has in common is chemical messages, hormones, blood sugar, signals messenger cells send each other tot talk to each other about what is going on. And if that stress does not decrease quickly and I am talking about stress that we create and thus bring onto ourselves, then our biological systems will eventually start to break down.

In addition, many people have to deal with "shocking events" (trauma) professionally, which can lead to Trauma and PTSD symptoms, such as police, army, air force, navy, fire, ambulance, hospital and educational staff.

One generally speaks of a "shocking event" when someone is confronted or being threatened with death, but also seeing someone die in an accident, or being threatened with death oneself during a hostage situation, for example.

These events have a particularly large impact on a person's emotional life, his/her thinking and their entire functioning. In such a situation, a degree of helplessness, powerlessness, and overwhelm arises, which in the end is often accompanied by fear of death.

Examples of a "shocking event" (trauma) that can lead to PTSD symptoms include:

• Natural disasters: Floods, earthquakes, cyclones.
• War: Soldiers, civilians (bombing), participants of resistance forces (war), but also relatives of 'traitors' (war).
• Illness: being told that someone has an incurable disease, or a chronic medically unexplained illness - an unexplained illness is often referred to as a 'somatically insufficiently explained physical complaint'.
• Misdiagnosis and/or medical malpractice, for example wrongly receiving a 'cancer diagnosis'.
• Traumatic loss and grief, for example the loss of a child or even several children, the sudden (horrific) loss of the life partner.
• COVID-19 intensive care exposure, which in many cases leads to Post Intensive Care Syndrome (PICS).
• Traumatized grief due to loss during the COVID-19 measures.
• Miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy, or premature delivery: especially in Post Abortion Syndrome (PAS) and after multiple medically unexplained miscarriages, ectopic pregnancy, timely, but especially untimely deliveries and, more specifically, childbirth ( or successive births) of a full-term child who died before or during birth.
• Terrorism: Survivors and/or next of kin of train hostages, aircraft hijackings, aircraft attacks (e.g. MH-17) and relatives and victims of suicide attacks.
• Sexual abuse: Rape, sexual assault, abuse of position e.g. in boarding schools, church communities, in profit and non-profit companies and in government.
• Domestic violence: Babies, children and adults.
• Psychological abuse: Severe indoctrination and long-term psychological abuse, child abuse, people in a (religious) cult.
• Violent crimes: Robbery, assault, threats, robberies.
• Serious accidents: Industrial accidents, traffic accidents, accidents in and around the house (incl. severe burns).
• Severe trauma from executive and professional suffering, eg executives and professionals who are bullied, threatened and/or blackmailed by their supervisors, colleagues and/or clients.
• Technological disasters: Nuclear accidents (Chernobyl, 1986), explosions (Enschede, 2000), gas clouds (Rotterdam, 2003).
• Other disasters: Plane crashes, serious traffic accidents (eg the catastrophic chain collision with sixty vehicles on the A16 near Breda - at Prinsenbeek in 1972 and more recently in 2014 on the A58 at Heinkenszand, in which 150 vehicles collided), shipping disasters (e.g. the Costa Concordia in 2012 off the coast of Italy) and railway accidents ( the largest to date in the Netherlands at Harmelen in 1962), but also burns and failed resuscitations.

As can be seen from the above summary, it does not

have to be a death threat at all to experience

something as a shocking event.

Any event that is so shocking that one cannot properly process it in the moment can cause it to bother someone later on. This is even more specific when children are involved. The innocence in the situation and, for example, the 'too early' death in the opinion of a person, contributes additionally to the emotional charge of the image of the situation.

This is because it is not only about an event, but in particular about the meaning that a person (unconsciously) gives to this event through sensory perception. The powerlessness that exists in a situation, the feeling that one is dying, or that someone else might die, all lead to undue stress, which the body cannot handle.

Trauma situations arise suddenly in the moment and can therefore unfortunately not be prevented. Trauma situations as a result of these situations are very individual, because it concerns what a person personally experiences (sensory perception) in a certain situation. What is traumatic to one person is a 'difficult experience' for another, but ultimately no more than that.

We can divide traumas into simple and complicated (complex) traumas, but also into obvious versus less obvious traumas;

• Examples of single trauma;
• Surviving a bank robbery.
• A fall from a building.
• Single sexual abuse (assault and rape).
• Parents after SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome).
• Women after miscarriage.
• Women after an abortion.
• A car accident.
• An earthquake or volcanic eruption.
• A firefighter who has to assist in a rescue operation with young people involving acquaintances.
• A police officer after an attempted strangulation by a detainee.
• A soldier after an attack in which cameramen die and he/she survives the attack.

• Examples of complex (complicated or compound) trauma
• Causes of complex trauma are often found in early childhood, where, for example, there was not only multiple and long-term domestic and sexual abuse, neglect, but also repeated violence where escape was not possible is.
• Sexual exploitation, but also more secular examples such as hostage-taking, captivity of war and the survival of concentration camps and religious sects.
• Also, for example, a situation in which war bombing takes place, father, mother, sister and brother disappear and the child e.g. loses a leg.
• Furthermore, the specific human interaction during the traumatizing event can add to the complexity - for example, was the perpetrator known, did he act intentionally, was trauma intended to occur, experiencing seeing someone not help in the situation but could have, etc.

• Examples of obvious trauma;
• War.
• Child abuse and neglect.
• Sexual assault.
• Rape.
• Natural disasters such as hurricanes, fires, or earthquakes.

• Examples of less obvious trauma;
• Divorce from parents.
• Parental rejection syndrome or parental alienation syndrome (PAS).
• Abandonment of children or betrayal.
• Witnessing domestic violence.
• Poor relationships with emotional and psychological violence (e.g. name-calling and other verbal abuse).
• Bullying and cyberbullying.
• Narcissistic or anti-social parent(s) or caregivers with mental health problems .
• Alcoholism or addiction during childhood.
• Falls and accidents, especially in children or the elderly.
• Car accidents or whiplash.Leaving alone as an infant or child.
• Higher risk major medical procedures when children are restrained, or when they are have had chronic and therefore repeated procedures. Manipulative counselor.

It also appears that the degree of exposure to 'shocking events' in combination with socio-economic country characteristics further drives the mutual differences. Trauma-related complaints therefore appear to be more common in countries such as the Netherlands, Canada and Australia, and not, as might be expected, in more socio-economically vulnerable countries. If people in, for example, the Netherlands, Canada and Australia experience higher exposure to trauma, they also report complaints more often.

Shocking events (traumas) lead in roughly 20% of people to

a Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and two

to three times more often in women than in men.

Occupational stress is common and especially in those professions, which can relatively often be regarded as stressful, because of the personal risk of exposure to confrontations and violence, but also the daily involvement in various traumatic incidents. As a result, high levels of stress-related symptoms can be expected, for example in;

• Ambulance
• Fire Brigade
• Executives
• Army
• Air Forces
• Navy
• Marines
• Entrepreneurs
• Educational employees
• Public transport (bus driver, conductor, controller, train driver, metro driver, tram driver)
• Police
• Professionals
• Care employees (in particular First Aid, intensive care and mental health care employees).

Professionally several tens of thousands

of people unfortunately develop PTSD.

In addition, there are many more people who show symptoms of occupational PTSD (partial PTSD). Many people are professionally confronted with undesirable behavior - especially aggression and violence. One may also regularly have to deal with shocking events such as discovery of a body, a shooting incident, or the death of a colleague. It is not known how many potentially shocking events people experience professionally each year. It is known, however, that 8% (±5000) of all police officers in the Netherlands make use of professional psychological care.

You cannot actually name a profession where there is currently no uncertainty about the 'official' figures of the number of people with PTSD in the Netherlands. It seems very likely that, especially in view of the current possibilities for data collection and processing, unfortunately too few attempts are (still) being made to gain structural insight into the number of people with PTSD. Because this is not published in a transparent manner, we cannot go further than to make a rough estimate at the moment.

It is assumed that ±30,000 - 40,000 people, have lifelong occupational

PTSD. An even much larger number of people have partial-PTSD,

or have a diagnosis that changed, i.e. 'shifted', from PTSD to

another long-term debilitating illness.

Just to illustrate – at the moment some institutes and individual professionals are considering that they are getting 'good results' with their PTSD clients. However, this does not always mean that these clients are symptom-free after their PTSD recovery traject or trajectories. No, in contrast, according to the guidelines, there may be no longer be "PTSD", based on the symptoms shown, but there are indeed residual symptoms. After so-called 'successful' PTSD recovery, many (60%) suffer from concentration problems for life - causing they cannot contribute as they would like to.

In addition, a 'different diagnosis' is relatively often made during 'PTSD recovery'. This 'shift' in diagnosis leads to the fact that these people no longer have a PTSD diagnosis according to the official diagnosis booklet, but they are by no means free of symptoms. However, people 'disappear' this way from the PTSD statistics.

The latter is the case, for example, when someone no longer has PTSD, but has now been diagnosed with depression or a general anxiety disorder, for which one must now be treated, often for the rest of their life.

Finally

Did you know that a burnout and especially a repeated burnout is often a misdiagnosis of a Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) - officially recognized at a later stage? That is why it is important that someone with PTSD is assisted as soon as possible with specialized expert and professional help. This sounds superfluous, but unfortunately it is not.

A misdiagnosis of PTSD is more than a 'misjudgment'. It creates an unnecessary, unpleasant and very complicated, long recovery process, of course with no result of recovering from PTSD.

Yes, someone with a burnout is indeed also (very) tired, gets exhausted, gets sleep problems, can no longer concentrate well, gets angry outbursts, loss of patience, performance problems, unexplained crying spells, gloomy mood or feelings of guilt - but can for sure have a PTSD diagnosis.

Many people with PTSD therefore use drugs to release tension, anxiety, depression and other symptoms ultimately caused by PTSD. These are often drugs such as benzodiazepines and antidepressants (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors or SSRIs).

That these are by no means 'harmless sweets' as is apparent from the highly addictive effects and the long series of side effects that these drugs cause. Often the drugs have side effects identical to the symptoms for which they are prescribed. Prolonged use can lead to all kinds of ongoing performance and relational problems, especially when one has somehow returned to the work environment. It is not to say there is 'no place' for these medications, but one should be especially careful in prescribing them and always with the plan to stop as soon as possible - as treatmen is always accompanied by effective treatment of the triggers, causing the stressreactions to occur.

Through this Beyond PTSD web site I would like to give a clear and refreshing perspective on PTSD. PTSD without a lifelong condemnation to PTSD symptoms and perhaps more importantly, effective recovery with a good quality of life in prospect.

My perspective described on this website further explores the background, psychobiology and psychophysiology of PTSD and Trauma, as well as the phenomena and importance of an effective and integral approach.

An approach that starts with what trauma actually is (energy), but also one that uses the most modern and advanced recovery coaching intervention techniques available - so that integral recovery from PTSD becomes a reality.