Warner Park Recovery Center – Woodland Hills Mental Health
Warner Park Recovery Center – Woodland Hills Mental Health
Reclaiming Inner Peace: Recovery from Emotional Scars
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Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a trauma- and stressor-related mental health disorder classified in the DSM-5 that develops in some individuals after experiencing or witnessing a traumatic event such as combat, sexual assault, natural disaster, or serious accident. While it is normal to experience distress following trauma, PTSD is diagnosed when symptoms — including intrusive flashbacks, nightmares, emotional numbing, hypervigilance, and avoidance of trauma reminders — persist for more than one month and significantly interfere with daily functioning. PTSD affects approximately 3.5% of U.S. adults annually, and people with PTSD are two to four times more likely to develop a substance use disorder as a result of self-medicating symptoms, making integrated trauma and addiction treatment critical.
PTSD symptoms can appear within one month or years after a traumatic event, impairing work, relationships, and daily functioning through four main categories: re-living the trauma (flashbacks, nightmares, intense reactions to reminders), avoidance (isolating from triggering people, places, or activities), negative mood and thinking (hopelessness, memory problems, emotional numbness, blame), and increased arousal (irritability, being easily startled, sleep and concentration difficulties, self-destructive behaviors). Children may additionally show delayed development, re-enact events, and experience sleep disturbances.
If you or a loved one may be facing a mental health or addiction issue, our assessment tool can help identify symptoms, though it doesn’t replace a professional diagnosis. Don’t wait—take the assessment and reach out for help. PTSD symptoms can worsen with stress or triggers, and many people turn to substances to cope. This self-medication often leads to addiction, creating greater health risks. Fortunately, many treatment programs address both PTSD and addiction together.
There are many effective treatments for PTSD, addiction, and other mental health challenges that can be used together for holistic healing. These include EMDR, which helps reprocess trauma; talk therapy and supportive counseling to explore emotions; DBT for building coping skills; group therapy to reduce isolation; and creative therapies like art, music, and mindfulness. Movement-based practices such as yoga, reiki, and breathwork also support emotional regulation. Additionally, medications prescribed by a psychiatrist can help manage physical and psychological symptoms of PTSD.
It is normal to experience distress, anxiety, nightmares, and emotional numbness in the days and weeks following a traumatic event — this is part of the brain’s acute stress response. PTSD is diagnosed when these symptoms persist for more than one month, are severe enough to significantly impair daily functioning, and include specific symptom clusters: intrusion symptoms (flashbacks, nightmares), avoidance of trauma reminders, negative changes in mood and cognition, and heightened arousal or reactivity. If you are still experiencing significant trauma-related symptoms more than a month after the event — especially if they are worsening rather than improving — a clinical evaluation for PTSD is warranted.
The treatments with the strongest evidence base for PTSD are trauma-focused psychotherapies, particularly Prolonged Exposure (PE) therapy and Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT), both of which are endorsed by the American Psychological Association and the VA/DoD clinical practice guidelines. These therapies work by helping individuals safely process traumatic memories and restructure unhelpful beliefs formed as a result of the trauma. EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is also well-supported and widely used. Medications — particularly SSRIs such as sertraline and paroxetine — are FDA-approved for PTSD and are often used alongside therapy for moderate to severe cases.
Substance use is extremely common among individuals with PTSD because alcohol and drugs offer a temporary way to suppress intrusive memories, reduce hyperarousal, and numb emotional pain — effects that provide short-term relief but significantly worsen PTSD symptoms over time. Research shows that people with PTSD are 2–4 times more likely to develop a substance use disorder, and the two conditions interact in ways that make both harder to treat in isolation: substances impair the emotional processing needed for trauma recovery, while PTSD symptoms drive continued substance use as a coping mechanism. Integrated treatment that addresses both PTSD and substance use simultaneously is considered the gold standard of care.
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