A More Efficient Treatment for PTSD?

A brief written version of exposure therapy seems equivalent to a standard psychotherapy for post-traumatic stress disorder and may be easier to provide.

Prolonged exposure and cognitive processing therapy (CPT) are effective first-line treatments for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but they are labor-intensive. In this Veterans Affairs (VA) study, 126 patients with PTSD (mean age, 44; military veterans, ≈25%) were randomized to 12 individual weekly sessions of CPT or 5 individual weekly sessions of written exposure therapy (WET). In WET, each session was divided between writing structured accounts of the traumatic event and reviewing the material. CPT used two written trauma accounts, but the accounts were prepared and used between sessions, along with other homework assignments. WET involved no homework.

In repeated assessments over 36 weeks of follow-up, both treatments produced equ…

Reviewing Author

Steven Dubovsky, MD

Disclosures

Grant/Research SupportTower Foundation; Patrick Lee Foundation; Boehringer Ingelheim; Intra-Cellular Therapies; Janssen; Biogen; Allergan

Editorial BoardsMind and Brain; Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic; Current Psychiatry; Journal of Psychosomatic Research

Steven Dubovsky, MD

Disclosures

Grant/Research SupportTower Foundation; Patrick Lee Foundation; Boehringer Ingelheim; Intra-Cellular Therapies; Janssen; Biogen; Allergan

Editorial BoardsMind and Brain; Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic; Current Psychiatry; Journal of Psychosomatic Research

A More Efficient Treatment for PTSD?

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Reviewing Author