Andy Warhol Museum, Hospital team up to help children with PTSD

The Andy Warhol Museum and Allegheny General Hospital have entered a unique partnership to help children coping with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Doctors from the hospital's Center for Traumatic Stress in Children and Adolescents said they are always looking for ways to help their young patients.

"They get stuck on the experience that they've had and they have a hard time getting passed this so they have nightmares and bad dreams," said Dr. Anthony Mannarino. "They are in their math classes trying to concentrate on doing their math, and they have a bad image of their father beating them or their mother getting beaten."

As with soldiers who return from war, children who suffer from PTSD can suffer from other health problems.

"The PTSD that kids have is the same kind that soldiers have coming back but the trauma they experience can be different," Mannarino said.

One of the ways doctors and the Andy Warhol Museum are working together to help patients is by teaching participants how to analyze and interpret facial features. Experts said they use the lessons to help the children with socialization.

"We actually started looking at facial recognition for children with autism because kids who are on the spectrum have a hard time recognizing facial cues. It's one of the reasons they have a hard time socializing," said Andy Warhol Museum curator Tresa Varner.

The therapy also includes a hands-on studio experience that allows the children to create their own portraits through silk screen printing, digital video and animation.

"You can better express some of your feelings through drawings and painting and so forth than you might be able to do so in words," Mannarino said.

Crochet as PTSD therapy?

Knit one, heal two?

Crochet is hardly the most macho hobby in the world, but maybe that's why it can actually be a good activity for people with PTSD. An article on Crochet Concupiscence calls crochet "a form of self-kindness," saying its slow pace can help put you into a meditative state that will in turn reduce anxiety and the severity of flashbacks.

Read on:

Crochet Is Healing … Even for People With PTSD

PTSD Virtual Retreat Members Speak: Fearless Nation in Second Life

This amazing video shows how the Fearless Nation PTSD Support virtual retreat has helped several people with PTSD. Check it out:



We have lots of new stories coming up on PTSD News in the coming week or two. Stay tuned.

Aromatherapy, Yoga & PTSD

In addition to therapy and medications, there are numerous things people can do to help ease the symptoms from their PTSD. Learning to relax is vitally important, and two ways to help you relax are yoga and aromatherapy.

Over at the site SelfGrowth.com, certified aromatherapist Robin Barnette offers a few ideas on using aromatherapy to relax and reduce anxiety.

Smell has been said to be a tremendous gateway to memory and the right aromas really can help you get to a good place in your head. Check out here recommendations here.

How have aromatherapy, yoga or other techniques helped you? Feel free to share them in the comments.

'Violin Doc' helps treat PTSD with music

At a New Jersey VA clinic, Dr. Mary Rorro is helping vets with PTSD by playing music. The goal: help the vets to relax before they begin talk therapy.

Music therapy is gaining acceptance, based in part on some new research:

"...recent findings from McGill University’s Neuropsychology department suggest that specific parts of the brain are activated when patients listen to music which they like. And when the nucleus accumbens and the caudate nucleus, which are part of the reward, motivation and emotion systems, get jazzed up, a person starts feeling better. These same circuits release powerful chemicals when someone falls in love, eats good food, does drugs or has sex."

Rorro, nicknamed the "Violin Doc" (despite the fact that she plays a viola) says that live music, played slowly on lower-pitched instruments, with no lyrics and with a steady beat, connects best with the people she is treating.

You can read more about this, and watch some videos of Rorro playing, here, thanks to New York's WNYC:

Music Therapy Helps Vets Control Symptoms of PTSD

Art as healing: "PTSD does not want you to be creative"

The excellent blog PTSD Spirituality has a new article worth reading called Art and Craft Can Heal PTSD Soul Wounds.

I have always felt that art, done in the right conditions, is as important as therapy. Art engages you on a level that talking or physical action alone can not. When I write fiction or poetry, I tough something deep inside of me and learn about myself in the process.

But sometimes I don't want to write something because it's too painful. Too raw. Too emotional. Too real. But then I remember that art is for myself, and it's a safe place to feel those feelings.

But as the article points out, "the more we try to creative, the more we heal."

Because of the nature of the PTSD Spirituality blog, the article brings up spiritual aspects, such as prayer and sanctification, which may or may not be for you. But give the article, and art, a try. You may be amazed what you discover.

Soldier explores PTSD by drawing graphic novel

Glenn Fitzpatrick served in the first Gulf War, and it took him 20 years to deal with the PTSD created by seeing his friends machine gunned to death or lose their legs in explosions.

He has finally explored his PTSD through art, and has now created both a graphic novel (a book-length comic) of his experiences in the Gulf War and an exhibition of other artworks.

Bleeding Cool, a comic-book news site, tell us: "It took Fitzpatrick, 38, almost 20 years to come to terms with the post-traumatic stress he suffered and to rebuild his shattered life. Unable to find the right words to convey all that he had seen, he turned to drawing as a means of expressing himself and retrained as an artist. Now, he has produced a graphic novel about his experiences as a tank driver during operation Desert Storm and his difficult return to civilian life."

The graphic novel, Art and Mines, is now available in the UK. You can see some sample pages here.