Hi, this is Flora Lichtenen and you're listening to Science Friday.

Today in the show, can a treatment for PTSD be painless?

To claim that you can treat PTSD without having the patient face their fears, it's just sort of anathema to the field.

About 7% of veterans experience PTSD, and that number can be as high as about 30% for those

who've served in a war zone. And yet PTSD has been treated roughly the same way since the disorder was first recognized

roughly four decades ago.

Patients are instructed to revisit trauma head on until the memory no longer creates an emotional

response.

But this process is so harrowing that over half of veterans are unable to complete the

full course of treatment.

So what if there was a way for PTSD treatment to be virtually painless?

Yasmin Tyag, staff writer at the Atlantic, investigated a controversial treatment called

Reconolidation of Traumatic Memories and explored the

challenges of even studying a treatment that Buck's conventional wisdom.

Yasmin, welcome back to Science Friday.

Thanks so much for having me.

So you begin your piece through the lens of a patient, Jeff Turner.

Tell us his story and how he ended up trying this alternative therapy.

Yeah. So Jeff Turner was an Iraq war veteran. And when he told me about his trauma, he referred to

an experience where he was leaving a mess hall. You know, he's having breakfast like any other day.

And then, and next thing he knows, the mess hall blows up and there's another explosion right by him.

He kind of panics. He ducks under a mail truck. And next thing he knows, somebody is chasing after him and is saying,

...