Page 76 - Total War on PTSD

options for alternative medical treatments. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) was somewhat successful but was difficult to deliver in the way that it was needed. To be effective with CBT, you have to do a lot of therapy and you have to do it quite often...and there generally weren't enough therapists or time available to make that work. So, we started trying to educate the VA about the benefits of acupuncture and other somatic therapies for Veterans. Because the VA is a big bureaucracy and it's also controlled by Congress, it meant that the hoops that we had to jump through to even be considered...for acupuncture to even be considered as a valid therapy...were nearly impossible to overcome.
It wasn't until 2017 that acupuncture is really started to be introduced into the VA medical system as a whole. It is also only within the last year that professional, credentialed acupuncturists have been hired to work for the VA. It took 14-15 years for that to finally happen. In the regular military it was faster because the Department of Defense is in charge rather than Congress. One of the limitations hindering acupuncture within the VA is a lack of physical space to conduct the treatment. Meanwhile, because there was no acupuncture being offered on site until recently, and a lot of Veterans were getting their treatments through private practitioners. The Veterans often had to advocate for their own care. They had to tell their doctors that the drugs weren't working and they had to ask for a referral to an acupuncturist outside the VA if one wasn't available internally. That is why we have trained our acupuncturists, since 2006, to set up all volunteer community clinics in different parts of the country that are dedicated to benefit Veterans and military personnel and their families. As of August of 2018, we have 40 such clinics. Some are daily, some weekly, some bi-weekly, depending on the need and the
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