Treating Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD): From Lobotomies To Meditation

With more and more veterans returning from overseas with the life-threatening and under-diagnosed Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, it’s increasingly apparent that the standard treatment isn’t doing the trick. Despite the current array of drugs and therapies, an estimated 18-22 veterans commit suicide every day – that’s far more than the number of soldiers who die in combat.

As Iowa Public Radio speaker Rick Fredericksen points out in this short but inspiring audio clip Veterans: Lobotomies to Meditation, we’ve come along way from the gruesome lobotomies used to “treat” PTSD after WWII, but there’s further to go. The Pentagon is currently performing a 4-year clinical study on the effects of the Transcendental Meditation technique on PTSD, but many veterans aren’t waiting for the 2016 results. Among them is Luke Jensen, who recently spoke at a Veteran’s Summit after learning the TM technique, “My mother has her son back, my wife has her husband back, my children have their father back, and I have my life back.” Just a short time before learning the TM technique, Luke himself was on the brink of suicide.

Listen to Daniel Gannon and Rick Fredericksen discuss PTSD on IPR below.

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Click here for the original post on Iowa Public Radio.

For more of Luke’s story, check out this Youtube video.