Is PTST incurable?

[HansMustermann]

Well, again, it depends on if someone is interested in publishing to a scientific standard or only looking for something that helps them. If the condition (PTSD) is clear enough to be diagnosed as an actual illness, it ought to be well enough described to say it's been modified by some treatment.

David is the real authority here, but from what I understand, most conditions are clear as in "a trained impartial professional would have a good chance to diagnose it" rather than in the same sense as whether a wound is there or not. You can't dissect someone's brains and see if something is clearly different or not, and certainly not one's own.

People imagining they feel this and that just because they read about some disease in some book or on the net is a real problem even for more physical diseases. People giving the answers that they think would please the questioner is also a problem recognized in many other fields, e.g., polling companies have to take it into account and prevent or compensate it. When one is patient _and_ questioner _and_ has one's own theories to fit to, the potential is immense for... well, I'd call it confabulation, but it's all alone.

Probably Freud is the best example, as it turns out that some of his showcase patients he supposedly treated were actually cameos of himself. He should have had all the confirmation in the world whether it works or not (namely: not) but obviously it didn't work that way

Is this a case of "I have more positive energy" or something more concrete, like "I no longer wake up screaming at night" ? I truly do see the placebo effect here, but this is a psychological condition, the black-box area of medicine where trial and error is the norm.

You nailed it right there when you mentioned placebo effect. Plus, people alter their own memories all the time, especially when it contradicts with something they really want to believe. Even writing a distorted version can cause you to remember the version of history you just rewrote, Orwell style.

Basically the potential is there to not as much stop or not stop waking up screaming, but that in a week you'll remember only a quarter of the times you did, or find excuses for why it doesn't really count.

I mean, really, look for example at all the people who insist that whatever they dream comes true. Just simple inclination to count the hits more than the misses, can make even something like that seem ironclad when one is judge, jury and sole witness. (Heck, I should know. I actually believed exactly that woo for a short-ish while in the past.)

That is, in addition to the other and probably more important factors that David already mentioned.

 

[marplots]

David and Hans

Does it make a difference that in this case it is a one-shot treatment? One dose, once. I didn't emphasis this, but in the case of MDMA and PTSD, I think it would be worth trying, with a lot of stipulations, among them a clear diagnosis. Again, I do not have the condition, so I do not know subjectively what the cost/benefit balance is.

On the broader subject of self-treatment for perceived ills, I have a mixed opinion. On the one hand, the world is full of predators who victimize the unwary with spurious claims. On the other hand, I do want, as an individual, the power to decide my own fate and evaluate claims by my own standards.

I am not sure where the line should be between preventing mistakes and the freedom to make mistakes.

 

[Shadow the Poodle]

Thank you for the good wishes and useful information, I pretty much function as normal, thanks to a combination of Citalopram and Alprazolam, the former in a pretty high dose. I have to avoid the news stories regarding the repatriation of dead soldiers and high stress. I have been on and off the medication for 10 years but am pretty much destined to stay on it for the remainder of my years,as the amount of time I can stay off medication is getting shorter and shorter.