One consequence of the complexity of PTSD is that pharmacological relief is sketchy at best. While existing anti-depressant medications (selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors, in particular) may ameliorate some PTSD distress, studies suggest that no one medication alleviates all symptoms and medications tend to affect men and women differently. Most perplexing, even though PTSD is classified as an anxiety disorder, administering drugs traditionally prescribed for anxiety, the benzodiazepines, has been less effective than placebos (Yehuda, p 113; Friedman, 1997) and in large doses can have amnesic properties (Krystal, Southwick, & Charney, 1995). Therefore, for those who do seek treatment for PTSD symptoms, some type of cognitive-behavioral therapy is often the only option available. Among some of the early treatment effectiveness studies, as many as half of the clients were reported as still meeting the criteria for unresolved and active PTSD after release from a short term course of treatment (Green, as cited in Meichenbaum, 1994)— and there are no reports of “durable remission” in chronic PTSD (Shalev et al., 1996, p. 177). Cognitive-behavioral therapies using exposure techniques—in which the patient imagines or is presented with actual traumatic reminders, such as the site of the catastrophe—are most prevalent. However, some treatment effectiveness studies suggest exposure techniques actually strengthen arousal and avoidance symptoms such as dissociation and increase counterproductive coping behaviors, such as substance abuse, with some patients (Krystal et al.1995; Shalev et al.). Shalev et al. suggest there is no cure for PTSD, only help in reducing symptoms that maintain the disorder. Said in another way by Krystal et al., there is no extinction of traumatic memories, but rather a masking of their effects (see Paunovic, 2003) and an enhancement of voluntary control over memory retrieval and emotions through language. In other words, even though the use of language to create an appropriate narrative for traumatic experience is central to many treatments for PTSD, a consistent therapeutic outcome seems well beyond the reach of most psychotherapists, let alone writing teachers.