“Posttraumatic Stress Disorder” was first given this name in 1980, after the Vietnam war, and the VA began providing therapy groups to help veterans discuss their PTSD. By 2000 these therapy groups were mostly abandoned due to their ineffectiveness.

Although some therapies claim to effectively treat PTSD, in 2008 the National Academy of Science was commissioned by Congress to study their effectiveness. The conclusion of these independent scientists was that there was “insufficient evidence to conclude” that any form of therapy was effective with PTSD, other than “Exposure Therapy” that showed a very small effect. Even psychiatric drugs were found to lack evidence of effectiveness, but the VA now spends $2 billion per year providing veterans psych meds for PTSD.

FIRST STEP:  The first step in helping people with PTSD is to help them identify the emotions they feel when they think about the traumatic event. The man in Las Vegas said that he felt sadness, anger, and shame. Many people present at that concert had strong feelings of fear, but this man did not.

SECOND STEP:  The second step in helping people with PTSD is to focus on the strongest emotion they had from the trauma and teach them how to release it. This man said that his strongest feeling was sadness, so we focused on this emotion. He made a list of eight reasons for his sadness, then he prayed and asked the Lord to take his sadness from him. Afterwards, he said that the sadness was gone.  

STEP THREE:  The third step in helping people with PTSD is to help them focus on each of the other emotions they have from the trauma, and teach them how to release each one.   He  said that he was angry at the shooter, so we made a list of the reasons for his anger. He was angry that anyone could shoot innocent women and children, traumatize so many people, and destroy families and the lives of others. It also made him angry that after killing all of these people he then killed himself.  If he wanted to commit suicide, this man felt that he should have done so and left the others alone. All of the reasons for his anger were "justified" reasons.  He had a right to be angry, but he did not want to remain angry. He identified 7 reasons for his anger, then asked the Lord to take his anger from him. After praying his anger was gone! Finally, he felt shameful and bad because he did not help save other people. Even though he was handicapped he still believed that he should have done more to save people and get them to shelter. The counselor prayed for truth and asked the Lord what He wanted this man to know.  The man said he “heard” the Lord say, “You can only do what you can do. It’s not your fault. You did everything that you could.” His shame left him.

STEP FOUR: The fourth step is to assess the person's emotions after they have released the emotions that they had identified. It is helpful to ask them to think about the trauma and to rate each of their emotions they had previously identified from the trauma, on a 10-point scale, with 10 being the highest emotion, and 0 being the lowest. When this man in Las Vegas thought about the shooting after praying about it, he said that he felt calm and was able to think about it without any strong feelings. When trauma victims finish praying about their negative emotions, they should be able to think about the trauma with very little or no emotion. When they are able to do this, they have resolved their PTSD. If they still have some negative emotions afterwards, it just means that they missed something and need to focus on the remaining emotions and make another list and release them, as before.

What happened in Uvalde, Texas on May 14, 2022 was a horrific, tragic trauma. The parents and siblings of the 19 children, and the families of the two teachers who were killed will most likely have strong feelings of grief, anger, shame and fear for a long time. If they do not receive help in overcoming these feelings, they may become depressed, angry, have marital problems, and may even turn to drugs or pills to deal with their justified anger and grief.

The mental health professionals do the best that they know how to do, but the techniques they use are very ineffective. The only hope of those traumatized in Uvalde is found in Jesus who said that He came "to heal the brokenhearted and set the captives free" (Luke 4:18). He wants to set each of the victims of the Uvalde shooting free, including the parents of the murdered children, the other children and adults in the school who survived, the law enforcement officers who were on site, and everyone else in Uvalde who knew these individuals or were affected by this tragedy.

Many people across the country have reached out to Uvalde and shown kindness and compassion to those hurting in Uvalde. But these kind gestures will never take away the pain in the hearts of those affected by this tragedy, nor will professional counseling.

Genuine healing comes only from Jesus, as we learn how to give Him our anger and grief and shame. Pray that each person in Uvalde will seek healing from the Lord, rather than from the world. And pray that each person will also give all of their anger to the Lord each day, and never “let the sun go down on their anger” (Eph. 4:26-27).  This is the only thing that will stop the violence in our country and prevent another school shooting.