Evidence of meeting #49 for Veterans Affairs in the 42nd Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was hope.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Doug Eyolfson Liberal Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB
Thank you.
Dr. Paris, you've been treating people with PTSD for about 20 years now, I understand. Over time, with regard to the numbers of patients you're seeing presenting with it, is it increasing? Is it decreasing? Is it changing? What is the trend?
Psychologist, As an Individual
Again, I'm a clinician, not a researcher, and the numbers would be obtainable through research. My practice—
Liberal
Doug Eyolfson Liberal Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB
No, I mean the numbers that you're—
Liberal
Psychologist, As an Individual
I hear that there's a waiting list for people to receive treatment for PTSD, and that waiting list is quite long in certain places.
Liberal
Doug Eyolfson Liberal Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB
We've heard some talk about stigma in the armed forces regarding personnel seeking help. Are you finding in your experience with your patients that they're describing the stigma being a barrier to their seeking help?
Psychologist, As an Individual
Absolutely, unfortunately, despite the amazing efforts that the CF has been making. I have friends and colleagues who've worked on the road to mental readiness program. There are incredible efforts to battle the stigma and change attitudes, but I can't say that I see.... Mind you, remember that I see a very biased group. I see the people who are not well. They tell me that the stigma is alive and well and is not really changing all that much.
I think we have to do something else, something different. What I propose is that we communicate that PTSD is treatable and you can resolve it through treatment. If it stops being a life sentence the way the media has been portraying it lately, and the way patient groups have been portraying it, I think the stigma might then change. If it means that you go into treatment for a few months or maybe a year shortly after the time you've experienced the difficult events, then the whole face of this problem changes.
I don't think the information is out there that there are treatments that work. In fact, I feel like turning the tables around and asking you if you've been hearing from psychologists, because it's in psychology that these treatments have been developed and researched. Have you been hearing from psychologists? Have you been hearing this message that treatments do work, they exist, and we have them now? We've had them for many years.
Liberal
Doug Eyolfson Liberal Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB
All right. Thank you very much.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Neil Ellis
The bells are going to ring in about two minutes, so this ends today's meeting. Again, I do apologize.
Conservative
David Sweet Conservative Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON
Mr. Chair, may I use a minute just to get something good on the record?
Liberal
Conservative
David Sweet Conservative Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON
It's just to see if we can get something that I think is good on the record.
Thank you very much, all of you, for your good work.
Mr. Joyet, please tell Stephen Gregory thanks very much for making sure every Canadian knows about Operation Husky.
This is for the two clinicians who are here. We've talked a lot about rehabilitation. We've talked a lot about training for the military. What kind of research is going on right now for prevention? Is there research that's happening to make sure that someone has the capability to deal with traumatic situations, so that not only are we treating after the fact but we actually have some resilience before the fact?
Medical Consultant, Parkwood Institute's Operational Stress Injury Clinic, Canadian Mental Health Association, Middlesex-London Branch, As an Individual
That's not my area of expertise, so I don't think I can answer that question.
Perhaps my colleague would know more about that.
Psychologist, As an Individual
Because I still have colleagues who are within the CF, I know there are great initiatives to train people, and those training efforts are now being spread throughout society as well and are helping first responders. In another job that I have I work with the RCMP. I do training for resilience to help people face new challenges.
The big thing is that we don't know that it's actually protective. No research yet has shown that. There are resilience programs, hundreds of them, throughout North America, but so far, I'm not aware of any research that has shown that this is protective.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Neil Ellis
The bells are ringing, so I need a motion to adjourn.
First of all, I'd like to thank everybody for coming today. If there's anything you would like to add to the testimony, you could email it to the clerk and he'll get it to the full committee. Again, thanks to all of you for coming today.
I'd like to thank the members who filled in for other MPs today.
We have a motion to adjourn from Mr. Samson.
(Motion agreed to)
The meeting is adjourned.