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Abstract
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Key points
• A significant body of research supports the efficacy of several trauma-focused psychotherapies in addressing PTSD, including prolonged exposure therapy, cognitive processing therapy, eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, brief eclectic psychotherapy for PTSD, narrative exposure therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy for PTSD, and written exposure therapy.
• Intensive delivery of these treatments, which allows clients to receive TF-EBPs across a short period, appears just as efficacious in reducing PTSD symptoms as standard delivery formats.
• Brief TF-EBPs, such as written exposure therapy, also demonstrate promising results in ameliorating PTSD symptoms, suggesting that significant symptom reduction can be gained in as few as 5 sessions of psychotherapy.
• Technology-facilitated deliveries of PTSD treatments, including video telehealth, represent a promising approach to increase the accessibility of gold-standard treatments for PTSD.
The psychotherapy literature for treating posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has proliferated over the last several years, largely due to advances in neuroscience. Translational research incorporating the roles of neural circuitry, biomarkers, and epigenetics in PTSD has helped elucidate the mechanisms involved in fear conditioning--a key process in developing and maintaining PTSD [1]. These approaches provide a framework for understanding how specific psychotherapy approaches for PTSD work and why they are effective. To date, cognitive-behavioral approaches remain the first-line treatment for people with PTSD [2]. Although unique differences exist in their approach to treatment, these treatments specifically target the reduction of factors that maintain the fear-conditioning process, and they promote memory reconsolidation, both of which are critical to the recovery process.
Language: en |