In the aftermath of a the recent mass shooting at an Orlando night club, Glenn Currier, MD, MPH, chair of the USF Health Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences, sat down with USF Health Communications to talk about community, family and individual healing after traumatic events.

Dr. Currier specializes in emergency psychiatry, including the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD.   While commonly associated with a traumatic event like military combat, symptoms of PTSD can emerge after experiencing any potentially life-threatening events such as natural disasters, community violence, serious accidents and physical or sexual assault. Most survivors of trauma return to normal, but for some the stress reactions do not resolve on their own or even worsen over time.

“With PTSD you feel trapped in the trauma long after it’s over – the re-experiencing of the situation and the detachment from day-to-day life as you go forward is really the hallmark of the illness,” he said. “We’ve also come to appreciate that more secondary kinds of exposure to things, like a shooting, a robbery, a fire, may also lead to PTSD. So, if somebody you love is hurt or if something cataclysmic happens in your town, it’s possible to develop these symptoms as well.”

For more of our conversation with Dr. Currier click on the following videoclips:

When to seek professional help following trauma

Helping your children cope with community violence

Finding common ground to support one another

Videoclips by Sandra C. Roa, USF Health Communications