PTSD Workshop

Friends, I’m sorry it’s taken so long to write this brief entry! Exams and life in general have thrown my life into a different kind of chaos, but that’s no excuse — last month our Rwanda Team had the chance to listen to Dr. Joe Lowman of the Psychology Department talk to us about Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). It was a helpful topic in light of where we will be traveling too—I, at least, have never been to Rwanda or any geographic region with such an overwhelmingly traumatized history. But what Dr. Lowman had to say was pertinent: only one out of ten people who have suffered from traumatic events will actually respond with PTSD; most people will deal with trauma in a positive way, while the other ten percent will suppress it until the trauma rises to the surface later. Dr. Lowman gave the advice “When you hear hoofbeats, always think horses before you think zebras.” –in essence, don’t assume that just because someone has been through a traumatic event that they will respond with PTSD. However, he also walked our team through some of the characteristics that a person experiencing PTSD will have—e.g, re-experiencing the trauma through dreams and what he described as “intrusive memories.”. He explained that people who have PTSD have "overactive nervous systems”. Emotional memories are processed in a different part of the brain and create hyperactive emotional responses for people who have experienced trauma.

In going to a region with recent trauma such as Rwanda, Dr. Lowman advised that we not jump to conclusions or treat people differently based on what we suspect they have gone through—instead, we should share our different observations with our team and work through those observations as a group. Overall, I thought Dr. Lowman’s advice was a thoughtful and sensitive approach to our time in Rwanda.

-Sarah

Photo: The Ndera Neuropsychiatric Hospital was the first, and remains the only, psychiatric hospital in the country. During the week of remembrance in April, there is a brief but marked increase in the number of patients who seek treatment for PTSD. For many, the week of remembrance acts as a 'trigger' and leads to intrusive memories about traumatic experiences that occurred during the genocide.