“The amount of progress in Caleb’s six years of therapy has been frustrating for everyone.”

-Through this they are indicating that Caleb has made very little progress from his therapy

-“…Frustrating for everyone” They are trying to make it sound as if the therapy was nothing more than a slow drag not only for Caleb but for everyone around him to. I’m not saying that they are over exaggerating Caleb’s recovery but rather the people’s involved in it.

“But ultimately, says Alain Brunet, vice president of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies and director of the Traumatic Stress Laboratory at McGill University in Canada, “we have reason to be reasonably optimistic. Psychotherapy does work for typical PTSD.””

-“Psychotherapy does work for typical PTSD.” Just thought how this was a stark contrast to what was mentioned back in section four were Caleb was screened for PTSD and ,according to his wife “he got the second-worst score in the whole 18-county Gulf Coast VA system, which serves more than 50,000 veterans.” Alain Brunet’s line almost undercuts it because based off it. it makes it seem that either Caleb’s wife was overplaying the results or Mrs. Brunet is severally underplaying it(that Caleb has normal PTSD, which is still bad, but cuts away from the earlier quote)

-“we have reason to be reasonably optimistic. Psychotherapy does work for typical PTSD.” This heavily implies that it works extremely well for anyone with normal PTSD. But they don’t explain what’s considered normal PTSD, so how am I, the reader suppose to understand either 1. the success of the treatment in general, and two, the actual severity of Caleb PTSD.

“The VA tends to favor cognitive-behavioral therapy and exposure therapy—whereby traumatic events are hashed out and rehashed until they become, theoretically, less consuming.”

-Isn’t the problem with PTSD is that it triggers the victim of the disease, depending on the severity of it based off certain things that’ll trigger a flash back? So is it necessarily healthy to treat them by repeadtly making them relive those memories?

“For severe cases, the agency offers inpatient programs, one of which Caleb resided in for three months in 2010.”

-“For severe cases,..” Once again goes back and forth with how bad Caleb’s PTSD is.

“There’s a fairly strong consensus around CBT and EMDR,” Brunet says.

-What’s the consensus? They placed the quote in without even stating what the consensus even was in regards to CBT and EMDR

“While veterans are waiting for those to work, they’re often prescribed complicated antidepressant-based pharmacological cocktails.”

-Whats the point of waiting on progress of there treatments if there also gonna down “pharmacological cocktails”?

-Are there benefits to doing both simultaneously?

 “The Mental Health Research Portfolio manager says the organization is “highly concerned and highly supportive” of PTSD research.”

“But a lot of FOV members and users are impatient with the progress. Up until 2006, the VA was spending $9.9 million, just 2.5 percent of its medical and prosthetic research budget, on PTSD studies.”

-Even though its only 2.5% of there budget, $9.9 million is still a lot of money in terms for research. The writer makes it as if they are fed scraps. it would have been more impactful if they only left in the percentage of the funding instead of the actual money used.

-At the same time though it does diminish the value of what the Mental Health Research Portfolio manager said in regards to the organization being “highly concerned and highly supportive” of PTSD research.”

 “But studies take a long time, and any resulting new directives take even longer to be implemented.”

-That’s the point though, yes they take time but that’s so to make sure whatever is being researched is being done right. So that there are few, in any, gaps in terms of there understanding. To just rush through the research wouldn’t help at all.