CLINICAL psychologist Dr Pearnel Bell is appealing to individuals who have experienced sexual trauma to seek counselling services available in the public health sector.

The call comes amid reports of increased sexual violence across parishes since the start of the year, which have drawn the ire of well-thinking residents islandwide.

Dr Bell said it is important that those affected get help to reduce the likelihood of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) taking root and further disrupting their lives.

“We do have rape victims who come in and most times they end up with PTSD and maybe a lifetime of trauma. The earlier they come in, the prognosis gets better, but if they wait for many months and years the prognosis becomes a little bit harder. However, once it has happened, we encourage them to move away from the shame associated with it and come forward for help because help can restore them to some level of normalcy and stave off the post-traumatic stress, which is usually the result the result of rape situations,” Dr Bell explained.

The impact of PTSD, according to Dr Bell, can have a serious blow on the normal functioning of individuals.

“With PTSD, people usually relive or have what we call flashbacks. They have hallucinations at times. Sometimes because they don’t want to deal with the situation they go into what we call dissociated state — they are seeing themselves outside themselves, so they dissociate. Because the memories are so painful there are nightmares, sometimes they avoid people, places and/or memories that remind them of the trauma. Some people, if it happens in a car, they become afraid of cars, they become afraid of the place that it happened. They don’t want to drive past it as they have a recurrence of the sensations of the feelings that go with it. Sometimes there is hyper vigilance, anger, fits of rage, irritability and difficulty with sleeping or concentrating. They experience negative thoughts, feelings of guilt or shame,” she explained.

The clinical psychologist said over the years more women and, in some instances, men have sought professional help through the public health sector and over time, there is improvement in their mental functioning.

“Even if they come initially with the fear, when they come in and see that here is a professional that has been trained, it’s not a lay person and they are listening to you in a way that will be helpful, people do come back and we’re better able to help and help them recognise that we are trying to help them regain a sense of normalcy especially in the mind,”Dr Bell said. “Normally when we go through any kind of psychological situation the mind is disturbed. When people are coming in to see a professional it is to help them to readjust their thought process and their thinking. All we’re doing is psychotherapy which is talk therapy but it is a structured talk and at the end of it you’re going to find some level of insight or healing.”

Further, Dr Bell urged individuals to stop stigmatising therapy as stigma contributes to people shying away from help.

“All we’re doing is helping persons go back to their normal state of functioning by talking through it using structured techniques that the person would be able to, at the end of even the first session, feel better because that professional trained to help to reorganise the mind, would have done that and the person would have had some level of healing. Over time, if they are consistent in coming they could go back to their normal state of functioning, which is what we want. When the ministry says there is no good health without good mental health, it’s true. When we have distortion in the way we are seeing and processing things, it just affects our whole functioning, whether it’s our social, occupational functioning or school functioning. We don’t want to go around being in a compromised state. We want to be in a state where we’re acting normal. Despite the fact that something tragic has happened to you, you can go back to normalcy,” Dr Bell said.

She further encouraged increased vigilance and caution when carrying out daily duties, lamenting that there are predators who will always seek to take advantage of people who appear vulnerable.