UCF Anxiety Disorders Clinic helps veterans, others suffering from PTSD, other disorders

As a traffic movement supervisor at the U.S. Army Recruiting Station in Sanford, Kevin Podd vividly remembers his five months in Kuwait, which happened seven years ago, and the moment he was held captive upon arrival.

"When I first got to the desert I was held captive for several hours. It was just several hours, but it was what felt like days," Podd said.

It took seven years for Podd to share the memories that haunted him.

"That was one of the big things that I had reoccurring nightmares about," he said. "I was only there five or six months, but during that first week the damage was already done for me."

Podd is a husband and a father of four. He is a veteran, a Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder victim and a previous patient at UCF's Anxiety Disorders Clinic.

A traumatic event, such as witnessing death, can lead to PTSD, which leaves its victims feeling restless and helpless. Those suffering from PTSD cannot control unwanted memories that replay in the form of nightmares, flashbacks and daily thoughts.

According the UCF Anxiety Disorders Clinic Trauma Management Therapy pamphlet, PTSD may affect about 8 percent of the population in the U.S. Those exposed to military combat increase their chances, affecting 18 percent of this at-risk demographic.

Funded by the Department of Defense, the UCF Anxiety Disorders Clinic provides free behavioral therapy for all veterans who were deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan and are suffering from PTSD.

Dr. Deborah Beidel, Trauma Management Therapy Program director, said that although the clinic is collecting data, behavioral therapy is not a new treatment.

"Behavior therapy is the most studied and, what we call, empirically supported — meaning it has the most data behind it — treatment for anxiety disorders," Beidel said. "It's more effective than medication, and it's more effective than talk therapy."

The clinic also acts as a teaching environment.

"One of the reasons we have the clinic here is not only to provide services but also to train graduate students how to do this treatment," Beidel said. "So then the graduate students can go out to other places and disseminate this treatment. There are not a lot of people, so far, who have been trained in behavior therapy and exposure therapy."

This 17-week program takes place right under students' noses. Behind a door on the first floor of the Psychology building are offices that appear quite normal, until the X-box game controllers, scientist-like glasses and giant headphones are pulled out and hooked up.

Dr. Sandra Neer, psychology research assistant professor, works mostly with veteran patients and said that although they have tried to disseminate the information, the clinic is "hidden over here."

"It's free of charge. We're fully staffed and can take people immediately," Neer said.

As a part of the Virtual-Reality Exposure Therapy, this equipment recreates the lifelike memories that veterans cannot shake.

Beidel said that the core of behavioral therapy treatment is exposure.

"Let's say you were afraid of a dog – how do you think you would get over that fear?" Beidel said. "You have to start being around dogs. We do it in a very controlled fashion, but exposure therapy arranges for you to get in touch with what it is that you're afraid of. We do it in a controlled environment – that's the key part."

More than the lifelike, on-screen avatars, Podd said the group sessions helped him the most.

"Not only did I take away more from that [the group sessions]," Podd said, "but I also saw the other soldiers that were going through the same thing I was when I first started, and there were some things I was able to share to help them get through the beginning part of the program, like I needed when I first asked for help."

Podd completed his treatment a month ago and said the first few weeks were the hardest.

"The first few weeks are very difficult; there are a lot of things that we've [soldiers] seen and done," Podd said. "They're very hard to talk about, and that's one of the first things you do in the program."

Despite his treatment, Podd said there are some "triggers" that will always affect him.

"I would say that I'm 40 percent better; I do not even fathom getting 100 percent better. If you truly have PTSD, I think, you'll never be 100 percent better," Podd said. "If I see someone get killed, or if I watch TV and someone gets their throat cut, that will trigger my nightmares. That has been burnt into my memory, and that's why I say you can't get 100 percent better."

The soon-to-retire veteran is pleased with the clinic.

"The program is excellent. The doctors give you so much stuff to work with, but you're only going to get what you put into it. If you don't get better it's because you don't try to get better," he said.

The UCF Anxiety Disorders Clinic offers all types of behavioral therapy, from PTSD to all types of phobias, including social phobias. To learn more about the program, go online to http://anxietyclinic.cos.ucf.edu/, or call 407-823-1668.