AUSTIN, TX — In the midst of PTSD Awareness Month, one Austin medical center is doing its part to fight the scourge — a mix of yoga, museum outings and excursions to horse stables — with measurable results.
A newly developed initiative dubbed the Veteran Restore Program at Ascension Seton Medical Center is tailored for military veterans experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) with a unique therapy mix. The six-week intensive outpatient program helps veterans experiencing PTSD reclaim their lives by re-training both mind and body to learn their dangers are past.
To that end, the program offers a mix that incorporates cognitive processing therapy, dialectical behavioral therapy augmented with resilient yoga, resilience training and community outings. The free program is a closed group of up to 10 patients, modeled after the medical center’s civilian Restore IOP which launched in 2017, matching its literature in terms of outcomes. Patient cohorts meet four days per week.
After being launched earlier this year, the Veteran Restore Program has led to roughly 50 percent of patients no longer meeting criteria for PTSD after the six-week IOP, officials said. In addition, those who retain their diagnosis and participate in all aspects of the program show clinically significant improvement, medical center officials added.
Dr. Valerie Rosen, a psychiatrist at Ascension Seton who doubles as an assistant professor of psychology at Dell Medical Center, created the Veteran Restore Program after detecting a dearth of such therapy utilizing evidence-based treatment. Given the host of debilitating symptoms associated with PTSD, the need was urgent, she suggested.
“It helps deal with overwhelming, strong emotions and develop coping skills,” Rosen told Patch in a telephone interview. The yoga component is essential to combat flight-or-fight reflexes inherent to those suffering with PTSD, enabling patients to get more in tune with their physicalities. “The body betrays or hijacks in inappropriate moments,” Rosen explained, citing the benefit of the discipline.
Complementing the rigors of cognitive processing and dialectical behavioral therapies are outings designed to promote human interaction among patients that tend to isolate themselves, not just mentally in tangible ways marked by physical distance from others. In Austin, two venues yield these special outings: The Blanton Museum of Art and Healing With Horses Ranch in Manor, just outside the city limits.
At the Blanton, museum educator Ray Williams welcomes Ascension Seton patients admission-free and with a specially curated array of artwork for them to assess. The outings yield multiple benefits, gently acclimating PTSD patients into loud public settings. As for the artwork, Rosen explained chosen pieces specifically invoking mind trauma for optimum therapeutic effect.
“Folks who have PTSD tend to isolate themselves, are not comfortable in crowds and don’t get out in the community,” Rosen explained. At the museum, patients take in the artwork without talking about it as they assess and assimilate the imagery, she suggested.
And then it’s off on a road trip to Manor, a 35-minute drive some 18 miles east of Austin. That’s where Healing With Horses, 10014 FM 973, is located where patients can brush up on their horsemanship skills and interact with the animals to gain equine trust. Horses are especially intuitive creatures capable of detecting anxiety when approached by people, reflexively backing away slowly when such inner turmoil is detected, Rosen explained.
“Horses are prey animals, and are very in tune with our emotions,” the doctor said. “If a person is internally agonized, horses back away.” Developing trust with a horse is an exercise among patients to “have their insides match their outsides to interact with the horse,” Rosen offered.
The horse ranch doubles as a barbecue venue for patients and their families every three months. Moreover, vets can always ride for free out there in Manor where the horses roam, welcomed to bring along family members.
Unlike the civilian version of the PTSD program, the one designed for military vets doesn’t rely on insurance coverage so there’s no delay in receiving treatment, Rosen explained. Costs are covered via grant money from the Texas Veterans and Family Alliance Program, yielding a $7,000 value per veteran. As part of the grant, veterans are provided with free rides from the ride-sharing firm Lyft in the event transportation poses an issue, Rosen added. The program does not discriminate based on discharge status, taking in any veteran in need of its services — regardless of the nature of their separation papers.
Given the program’s fledgling nature, longitudinal study into its efficacy is the stuff of future examination. But one needn’t study long-term results in talking with Katherine Harper, 32, one of the program’s early graduates.
She was a licensed vocational nurse (LVN) during the course of her eight-year stint with the U.S. Army, which included training on active duty for two years at Walter Reed National Military Medical Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland. “I was a busy bee, also working as a contractor and civilian federal employee,” the Texas native from the namesake city of Harper, Texas, who just celebrated a birthday this month told Patch in a telephone interview.
But along the way, Harper says she was raped by a fellow service member. Exacerbating the trauma was having to be in the same room with her alleged attacker in school settings while military officials investigated.
“We were having a party in the barracks like we weren’t supposed to be,” she said, describing an all-too familiar scenario. “To this day, I’m convinced someone put something in my drink,” she added, in gentle self-deprecation of the Irish wherewithal of her tolerance for alcohol.
The military made all those involved attend Alcoholics Anonymous classes, she recalled. The trauma of the rape, exacerbated in having to see her attacker each day during school led her to seek therapy prior to the Veteran Restore Program, she noted. The final indignity: The military gave her a neutral discharged dubbed Article 15 — not a dishonorable discharge, but one lacking the gravitas of honorably discharged status — that has prevented further schooling in some instance to this day, she said.
And then, her therapist recommended the Veteran Restore Program to complete her healing, she related. It’s made a world of difference, she suggested, and today she shows no clinical signs of PTSD. But the road to get where she is today was long and hard.
“They helped me the most in changing behaviors,” she said, adding how she resorted to “maladaptic coping skills as a form of self-medication by drinking and smoking too much amid her trauma.” I started calling out sick at work, I had nightmares, I couldn’t sleep,” she said. Close interactions with others were a challenge too: “It was like touching a hot stove,” she said.
But she said the Veteran Restore Program slowly brought her back, adding she enjoyed every aspect of it. She was a little skeptical about the yoga component, having already taken classes in the past. “I was kind of too cool for school,” she joked. “I thought it was to basic for me. But there’s a lot of truth that slowing down makes sense. We store trauma in our bodies, and yoga is a moving meditation that really helps.”
The only other woman in her group dropped out at one point, she said, leaving her as the sole female patient among a bunch of guys. But that, too, proved a blessing in the long run in lending insight that not all men in the world are bad men. Today, “Kat” is flourishing in a healthy relationship with a boyfriend, and no longer meets the criteria for PTSD after undergoing the program. “I feel like I’m less afraid of the world in general,” she said.
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The military culture tends to promote a sense of self-reliance and strength, making the idea of therapy anathema to some. PTSD patients don’t display outward battle wounds, heightening the hesitancy among some to seek help for mental injuries that are just as real. To her fellow military veterans suffering inner turmoil but reticent to reach out, Harper says: “I would tell them that seeking help is a strength, not a weakness. Throughout your journey, you’ll come to realize that.”
Military veterans wishing to learn more about the Veteran Restore Program are urged to call Seton Behavioral Health Care outpatient services at (512) 324-2039.