Complementary and Alternative Medicine for PTSD

• Use of CAM is widespread for the management of mental health problems, including PTSD.
  
• Broadly conceptualized, "complementary and alternative medicine" (CAM) refers to treatments not considered to be standard in the current practice of Western medicine
  
• The more frequently studied complementary and alternative therapies are meditation, acupuncture, yoga, and biofeedback. Less studied therapies include animal-assisted therapy, mantram repetition, and music therapy. The former studies are being conducted in a variety of PTSD populations, including veterans, and they are being evaluated in combination with treatment as usual. We incorporate the following into our programs:
  
  • yoga
    
  • acupuncture
  • massage
    
  • biofeedback (HeartMath)
    
  • EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing)
    
  • feldenkrais
    
  • cryotherapy
    
  • ​reiki energy healing
    
  • sound therapy
  • music therapy
    
  • art therapy
    
  • ​sweat lodge ceremony
    
  • equine therapy
    
  • meditation / mindfulness
• The study of psychobiotics (for example, gut microbiota) is a new field of medicine that is relevant to stress and related psychological disorders. Some researchers have suggested that preclinical and clinical studies of psychobiotics could inform treatment for stress-related conditions (Burnet and Cowen, 2013; Dinan et al., 2013). We incorporate a Nutrition class to emphasize the role of the microbiome in mental health.