Recreational Therapy For PTSD
Posted on: 30 January 2015
Trauma can bring lasting and sometimes damaging changes to your life. Whether the trauma is physical, sexual or psychological, it can create long term anxiety, depression and trouble coping with everyday life. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is the long term symptoms experienced after a traumatic event, and PTSD is experienced by roughly 7.8% of America's population. PTSD behaviors can include intrusive thinking about the event, avoidance of anything in your life that reminds you of the event, and a very heightened startle or "fight or flight" response. Since PTSD can interfere with your life on such a broad spectrum, it is crucial to look at recreational therapy options to help you overcome trauma.
What is Recreational Therapy?
Recreational therapy differs from conventional therapy in that the therapy itself involves many aspects of your life, instead of just focusing on your problems. Recreational therapy includes changing and improving your leisure time and activities, your social, emotional, financial and physical resources.
In short, recreational therapy works by improving all areas of your life. This is so effective against PTSD because this whole-life approach forces your brain to make new memories and neural pathways. These new memories will eventually help override traumatic memories and thus, create a more stable psyche.
Who Can Receive Recreational Therapy?
Most recreational therapists are able to work with children and elderly patients, veterans, those who have been traumatized by abuse or rape or crime. This means that anyone who needs any type of therapy to help improve their physical, emotional or psychological well-being can receive recreational therapy.
In some instances, people with physical trauma will receive only physical recreational therapy (incorporating new sports or physical activities), while those who need psychological recreational therapy may also undergo art projects, plant tending or other types of novel and healing activities.
How to Find a Recreational Therapist?
Hospitals, Veteran's administrations, doctor's offices, local counseling agencies, and even social work clinics are all excellent places to inquire about recreational therapists for PTSD.
Without treatment, PTSD can be a long term and challenging issue to live with. Recreational therapy offers you a way to make abiding and deep changes within your life and within your thought processes to help reduce symptoms of PTSD. Rather than just focus on your physical issues, a recreational therapist can help focus on improving all aspects of your life, thus allowing for multifaceted improvement for your physical and psychological well-being. Visit a recreational therapy clinic, such as RecCare Inc, today.
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