As Americans pay tribute to veterans on Tuesday, one of the prevailing challenges affecting those who served in the Armed Forces is finding solutions for ongoing and unresolved mental and emotional trauma.
Veterans suffer various forms of trauma— either due to war and combat, violence and abuse, or disaster events — collectively referred to as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), affecting about 12 million people in the U.S., according to the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs.
And while mental health professionals routinely employ specific short-term psychotherapies, most notably Cognitive Behavior Therapy — deemed to be the most effective treatment for PTSD — they agree that what works for one person may not work for another. One alternative source of treatment, well documented in studies but still lacking the full endorsement of the Department of Veteran Affairs (VA), remains the use of service dogs…