Psychotherapy for PTSD Without the Focus on Trauma

Although trauma-focused therapies such as prolonged exposure therapy, cognitive-behavioral therapy, and their variants are often portrayed as gold-standard treatments for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), many patients don't respond. Clear evidence for superiority of these approaches has been elusive, and some studies have reported noninferiority of certain non–trauma-focused psychotherapies, including interpersonal psychotherapy and present-centered therapy. In a two-site trial, 173 treatment-seeking veterans with PTSD were randomized to eight 1-hour weekly manualized sessions of “mantram” (i.e., sacred word) repetition therapy or present-centered therapy (men, 85%; white, 64%; mean age, 49). Patients taking PTSD pharmacotherapy (60%)…