Tag Archives: PTSD

We'll go to the doctor when we feel flu-ish or feel a nagging pain. So why don’t we see a health professional when we feel emotional pain such as guilt, loss, loneliness?

Station House provides those in need with the tools in treatment to do their jobs without life altering consequences and to take care of them, heal them, and make them well again so that they may return to help and heal others as the proud, brave and dedicated first responders that they are.

I've been involved with firefighters and the stress reactions they experience for over 25 years, so the recent trend to using the PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) term for all manner of stress reactions causes me concern. There is no doubt that firefighters and other first responders do sometimes experience PTSD. It has been my privilege to listen to several first responders who could be accurately diagnosed with PTSD. However, recent articles and “studies” purporting to be seeing PTSD in groups of firefighters are alarming in the use of rates for this diagnosis. A quick sample of these efforts indicates ranges form 17-24% of a cohort of firefighters who could be said to have PTSD.