Linda Hurtado | Tampa Tribune
Army Green Beret Brian Anderson came back from deployment in Afghanistan with images that haunted him. Visions of eight-hour fire fights and the death of two friends left him with odd and overwhelming symptoms.
“I thought they were blood pressure issues, diabetes or something like that,” he said. “When I went in to be checked out, they said ‘No, you’re having panic attacks. This is post-traumatic stress.'”
Anderson tried conventional therapy but his symptoms got worse.
“I’d wash dishes and imagine a bullet going through my head,” he said. “I would drive down the road and I would look at the car next to me and one of my best friends Calvin, who was killed on one of our missions in Afghanistan, he’d be driving the car next to me.”
A friend referred him to the USF College of Nursing and ART therapy. The acronym stands for “Accelerated Resolution Therapy,” a new type of psychotherapy, said Kevin Kip, USF College of Nursing executive director of research.