In traumatic stress-injured patients, memory for the details of the traumatic event often superficially appears to be lacking. In reality, such memory loss is often not the result of a failure to encode memory, but rather, a problem of memory retrieval and expression, rooted in the left-brain organ of speech. Small children are particularly affected because they lack the verbal skills and vocabulary with which to externally express their internal emotional and mental states of fear and terror. Such experiences are so noxious to small children that their brains – literally – “cannot bear to talk about it.” MediMental Care has developed a proprietary mode of therapy (“PT-SEE”) which, since 2005, has been helping both children and adults to address this problem.
In this case, a 5-year-old child suffered extensive and grossly disfiguring 3rd-degree burns when she was trapped in a residential structure fire. The child’s lead physician considered Dr. Parker’s collaborative care to be essential and went so far as to sponsor and obtain emergency hospital privileges, in order that this care could take place. In the months that followed, it was important for the family to know, definitively, what had caused the fire which burned their home to the ground and to have a sense of closure on that issue.
While the child was still a hospital inpatient, she had the opportunity to use the PT-SEE method, which facilitated the regaining of her mental recall, without re-traumatization. Not only was she able to engage in verbal recall due to the use of this method, but she was able to diagram the entire scene, as she remembered it on the night of the fire. These drawings included the presence of a “boom box” cassette player in the child’s room. It proved to be the priceless clue which led fire investigators to determine the cause of the fire. Later, the scene was actually reconstructed by fire investigators, according to the exact specifications of the child’s drawings during PT-SEE therapy. The fire again erupted, just as the child described it.
This child continued to work with Dr. Parker for 5 years. Although her badly disfigured face is no longer beautiful, she nevertheless radiates a beautiful countenance from within, thanks to the post-traumatic care she received. Her memories are fully integrated into a time/space continuum so that she no longer suffers from PTSD and looks forward to living a full, BEAUTIFUL life.