Eliana Benador: Sensational Breakthrough in PTSD Treatment

Millions of people around the world suffer from a silent and creeping condition that surreptitiously torments them in the light of the day and in the darkness of the night. Whether military veterans, rape victims or witnesses of horrific scenes they suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD, a condition for which there were so far only some alleviating treatments. The good news is that now PTSD is doomed with a brilliant innovation: The Muss Rewind Therapy.

In America, a menu of treatments have been available to PTSD sufferers, from animal therapy to yoga to virtual reality with an added treatment of choice, the Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) which is said to be an integrative psychotherapy approach.

However, after a lengthy eight-step process and at least six sessions, all a patient could hope for with EMDR, was to neutralize the symptoms without actually healing the condition.

Another kind of palliative treatment used to deal with PTSD, this time in the United Kingdom, has been the cognitive behavioral therapy or CBT, which is a "structured, short-term, present-oriented psychotherapy for depression, directed toward solving current problems and modifying dysfunctional, inaccurate and/or unhelpful thinking and behavior."

The British Army has used these treatments, CBT and EMDR, both showing a dim success rate, i.e., only one-third of those treated, as shown in figures published on the Combat Stress website.

Salvation is coming precisely from the island of Albion for the millions of PTSD sufferers around the world.

For over a decade, a treatment that could well turn to be “the” solution to heal PTSD has been lulling in the background while many millions of PTSD victims were living their agony.

Back in 1991, the British-American born citizen, self-described “son of an American dad and a British mum,” Dr. David Muss, a medical doctor with degrees from the Universita’ di Roma and the United Kingdom, introduced for the first time his Rewind Technique “A new technique for treating Posttraumatic Stress Disorder,” in the British Journal of Clinical Psychology.

In it, he recorded initially treating 19 policemen with PTSD. Although in similar cases clinicians follow-up their patients maximum for up to three months, Dr. Muss provided an unusual follow-up of two years. All his patients reported being well, returned to work and there wasn't a single relapse.

Dr. Muss is the Director of the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Unit, at the BMI Edgbaston Hospital in Birmingham, the United Kingdom. He is the founder of the Association for Rewind Trauma Therapy, ARTT. He is also the author of "The Trauma Trap" a self help ebook to overcome PTSD.

He further explains: “My dad was killed in action in World War II. I really know how much my mum suffered and I sincerely hope that the Rewind would help not only the surviving vets but also those who will have imagined how their children or loved ones were killed, e.g. blown up, etc.”

The Muss Rewind Therapy dealing with single event traumas requires two to three sessions at the most, while multiple combat traumas must specifically be dealt with separately.

In the case of sexual abuse trauma, for example, it could be treated in multiple sessions though sometimes a single session could suffice.

Case in point.

While I was interviewing Dr. Muss over the phone he asked me if I had a trauma, to which, I answered yes. He then, graciously, offered to treat me then and there, over the phone.

He said he did not need to know what it was. I had been raped when I was 19-years old and until the day of the interview, it was enough for me to think or hear anything rape-related and I could see the whole scene running vividly through my memory, as if it had happened yesterday.

He first explained the modus operandi and then we proceeded to a first, and then to a second time. And, barely after maybe 12 minutes in all, there I was, free of my decades-long torture.

I am aware that according to the above-mentioned follow-up in those 19 policemen, there was no recurrence at least for two years. In my case, now, a few weeks later, I remember it happened, but I am not re-living the rape anymore. Impressive.

The Muss Rewind Therapy for PTSD offers a way to permanently stop the involuntary recall by filing the traumatic event in one’s mind and placing it under one’s control.

Indeed, once filed, the involuntary recall will stop: flashbacks; nightmares; ruminations disappear, and so will recall due to triggers such as places, people, smells, time of the year, sounds, and many, many others.

The interesting fact is that voluntary recall remains and can be accessed at will. It does not make it possible to forget the traumatic memories though, no treatment can do that.

Dr. Muss shows with clarity the advantages of the Rewind Technique over other methods: “For instance, it is different from other imaginal exposure therapies because survivors are not required to either verbalize or write their experience but rather re-experience it in their minds, just as it regularly re-presents itself to them.”

This is a non-invasive treatment, the fastest, most effective and enduring available to treat PTSD. Above all, it minimizes the risk of the client being re-traumatized since no details are disclosed to the therapist. Therefore, it provides major benefits for both, the survivor and the therapist.

Devoid of the need to unveil what kind of trauma is being treated, the Muss Rewind Therapy will keep intact the anguish of patients and... their dignity.

Asked about any potential risk, the doctor replied: “While there is no risk in the technique itself whatsoever, there may be a potential risk if the person offering the treatment does not comply with its methodology. In other words, should the client become distressed at any point, which is not surprising for some, the practitioner must not let the client/patient go home out of sympathy, because that would mean the whole trauma would have been uncovered and no closure provided. That could result in the client not returning for the next appointment and then feeling hopeless or, worse, the client becoming as upset as he or she did when the trauma originally took place, therefore, the practitioner must reassure the client and explain the importance of completing the treatment. Specifically, the practitioner must not allow the client/patient to leave the session without the Rewind Therapy being carried out in full.”

Currently, the Rewind is being extensively used in England and Dr. Muss has shared it with over 300 therapists in different parts of the world.

As a matter of fact, the Muss Rewind Therapy is being increasingly accepted as the ad hoc treatment at rape crisis centers, domestic violence movements in the United Kingdom.

Another very important factor is that the Muss Rewind Therapy for PTSD will also save millions if not billions of dollars in health insurance.

Dr. Muss emphasizes: “Cost is a very important issue; I have treated eight soldiers, for free, in under four sessions- that is unthinkable in the United States. For example: Combat Stress spent 15 million pounds, the equivalent of $23.5 million last year, with only a third successfully treated.”

With the staggering number of veterans suicides in the United States, and the increasing numbers of Veterans PTSD, the combat victims par excellence, we are hoping that this will be a welcome news to improve the precarious health of those who sacrifice love, family, friends, risking their lives to protect their country. No matter how bad, sooner or later, the physical scars of the body heal, but the psychological scars are the ones haunting and chasing the PTSD victims to their doom.

May the Muss Rewind Technique bring a worldwide revolutionary salvation for patients, Vets, rape victims and all other witnesses of violence who, together with their families, are submitted to the invisible and relentless torture of PTSD... until now.

Eliana Benador, contributor to TheBlaze, is a strategic and risk consultant, adviser, opinion writer who was the founder of Benador Associates. Her website is www.elianabenador.com. You may follow her at @ElianaBenador on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook.

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