Alicia -

I’m curious what your thoughts are on the depiction of therapy for PTSD in Grey’s Anatomy. I, myself, was frustrated because there are multiple empirically supported treatments for PTSD that are available and what was depicted on the show was in no way representative of that fact. It frustrates me that millions of people view this show - which is doing an otherwise solid job of depicting the illness itself - but are given no sense of the effective treatments that exist.

I get that it is not their job to promote effective treatments for mental illness, so I suppose it is not reasonable to be angry about it, but I long for the day when popular media will show an individual receiving treatments that work. In this case, cognitive processing therapy or prolonged exposure would be the way to go, but unfortunately, that topic wasn’t touched upon at all.

Just curious about your thoughts on the matter.

http://www.psychotherapybrownbag.com

@ Mike - Haha, Grey’s Anatomy has ticked me off more than once regarding mental health story lines. I haven’t watched last week’s episode yet (I’ve been out of town), so I don’t know if there were any new developments, but up until last week’s episode, but up until that point I’ve been 1) disgusted with Meredith’s reaction, 2) pretty satisfied with the way the writers are showing Cristina’s roller coaster of reactions, and 3) curious to see where they’re going with Owen’s treatment, etc. If I remember correctly, the last episode I saw had Derek giving Owen a brain scan. I can’t remember where they were going with that (or if they said), but I’m interested in finding out. Part of me really hopes it’s not some brand new, clinical trial type of treatment method because, really, I’d like to see them use something that the majority of PTSD sufferers can access, you know?