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How can a civilian possibly understand?

Dr. Abigail Angkaw, Clinical Psychologist, answers common questions about PTSD.

Transcript

You might be concerned in coming into mental health treatment,

coming into treatment in general, that you'll be working

with somebody who is different than you, someone who is just

not going to understand what you've been through.

One way that we see that in the VA hospital is a Veteran

potentially being concerned about working with a provider

who is a civilian, maybe a provider who's never been to war,

a provider who's never experienced the trauma that you have.

The first way that we work on that is just to talk about it,

to really lay that on the table.

See if treatment is something you're still willing to try

and maybe touching on that concern

because sometimes that concern is related to PTSD,

and that's something that we can really work together on.

As a clinician, I don't expect to understand

what you've gone through, everyone has their own path in life.

But my training has been on treating PTSD,

and so we work on that together,

and we really welcome talking about concerns all together.

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