Harper Scott Clark: Robert R Rynearson MD HOPES HIS TECHNIQUE HAS FUTURE FIGHTING PTSD

By Harper Scott Clark
Temple Daily Telegram – Staff Writer
http://www.tdtnews.com/story/2010/3/9/64674

A technique meant to relieve physical and emotional pain through psychotherapy is revealed in a newly released book on the subject. “Time to Listen” by Texas psychiatrist Robert Rynearson describes how unmasking and releasing repressed emotions can bring relief. Rynearson hopes to someday see widespread use of the technique to treat soldiers who are returning from Iraq diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder as the result of the trauma of combat.

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Profile Self-Confrontation works on a principle that most individuals mask suppressed emotions with their faces.

Dr. Rynearson describes how Profile Self-Confrontation using video cameras to record both sides of a patient’s face leads the left and right profiles into a dialogue. This ultimately brings to the surface emotions that have long been buried. The end result can mean relief from physical pain or emotional anguish, Rynearson said.

He said the technique was the centerpiece of his psychotherapy program at Scott & White Memorial Hospital in Temple, Texas for 35 years. “It proved a powerful tool for cutting through the natural resistance all of us use to protect ourselves from our most disturbing thoughts,” Rynearson writes. He said it gets results in a matter of weeks that took months or years using other forms of psychodynamic psychotherapy.

Rynearson believes they are having PTSD problems because they bury their emotions.

“It literally helps patients face the truth, which is difficult and painful to do,” Rynearson writes. “We think the person we present to the world is the true us, when, in fact, the persona is only half of the truth. Most humans want to be better than we are, but most of us have settled for a public image that we protect fiercely.” Rynearson said that in working with military volunteers diagnosed with PTSD and with their families he found this technique very beneficial.

“I am asking myself if there is some way to help these soldiers and their families,” Rynearson said. “They have been terrified by this experience – trauma from combat — and once they have survived it they then have to go back to Iraq for another tour. What happens to the family and the relationship with the children from the emotional impact is devastating.”

“What happens to these soldiers is they repress all of this,” Rynearson said. “They try to ignore the fact that they have been through all they have and they feel like they need to talk to somebody. But that puts them on a collision course with the Army. And if they are emotionally troubled, that interferes with their career.”

Profile Self-Confrontation is quick, safe and effective, and it does not require medication, said Rynearson.
A scientific study is the next step, he said, which he predicts will produce reliable data and lead to a broader use of the technique.

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