Supportive counseling

All patients need and deserve support and empathetic understanding. Supportive psychotherapy helps by shoring up defenses, utilizing strengths, empathizing with distress, explaining the characteristics and course of PTSD, monitoring changes and reassuring the patient that improvement will, in time, occur. With the patient's permission, support and explanation should also be provided to family members, friends and others important in the patient's life. These individuals constitute a network of support that can sustain a person—possibly even until PTSD resolves on its own, as it sometimes does.

Family doctors often know a patient best and can be an important source of support. A number of support groups are also available. The Anxiety Disorders Association of America lists many self-help groups in the United States. Visit our Where can I find help? section for our list of resources.