The Time Cure: Overcoming PTSD with the New Psychology of Time Perspective Therapy / Philip Zimbardo, Richard Sword, Rosemary Sword

Amazon Exclusive: Q&A with the Authors

Q. What causes PTSD?

A. PTSD can be caused by natural disasters such as hurricanes, earthquakes, wild fires, tornadoes and floods or human-made events such as war, acts of terrorism, accidents and abuse of any kind.

Q. What’s the number one cause of PTSD?

A. We know that combat and exposure to war may cause PTSD for our active duty and military personnel, but in the civilian population, the number one cause of PTSD is automobile accidents. For women, the number one cause is sexual trauma.

Q. Do men and women suffer from PTSD equally?

A. At this point, it appears that women are more likely to suffer from PTSD than men. In a recent article published by the National Center for PTSD, women are also more likely to be neglected or abused in childhood, to experience domestic violence, or to have a loved one suddenly die…and are more than twice as likely to develop PTSD as men after a trauma.

Q. Why did you write this book?

A. The Time Cure was written for anyone who has lost hope and feels they don’t have a future. It’s for everyone suffering from PTSD and their loved ones. It’s also for those in the medical and mental health communities working with PTSD sufferers.

Q. Can PTSD also affect a person’s family members?

A. Yes, PTSD affects the entire family. And, not only loved ones, but also co-workers and others the PTSD sufferer may come in contact with. This book will help family members learn the signs of PTSD. It helps them see patterns that they may have adopted as coping mechanisms for living in a PTSD household and shows them how to help themselves while they help their loved one.

Q. How is this different from other approaches to addressing PTSD?

A. Time Perspective Therapy takes into consideration not only a person’s past and present, but also their future. Many approaches to helping PTSD sufferers focus on a person’s history and how past events affect their thought processes. Through our practice we’ve found that constantly reliving that past trauma can have extremely negative effects on a PTSD sufferer—we call it “being stuck in the quicksand of the past.” A person with PTSD is stuck between their traumatic past experience (what we call “past negatives”) and their hopeless present (what we call “present fatalism”). If they do think about the future, it’s usually negative. In TPT we focus on balancing a person’s past negatives with positive memories of the past; their present fatalism with some present hedonistic enjoyment; and we make plans for a bright, positive future.