Counseling trauma victims: 4 brief therapies meet the test

Therapists once believed trauma survivors required years of treatment, yet we now know that relatively brief cognitive-behavioral interventions can yield long-term gains in psychosocial and psychological function. Many psychiatric patients meet diagnostic criteria for PTSD, including: 33% of women experiencing sexual assault, 30% of male war veterans, and 30% of the 5 million U.S. children exposed to trauma each year. The authors offer recommendations on how to prepare traumatized adults and children for cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) and discuss four tested models -- prolonged exposure (PE), cognitive processing therapy (CPT), eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR), and stress inoculation training (SIT) -- that psychiatrists may find effective when treating PTSD.

Magazine

English

Kathleen M. Chard
Rich Gilman

Chard, K. M., & Gilman, R. (2005, August). Counseling trauma victims: 4 brief therapies meet the test. Current Psychiatry, 4(8). 50, 55-58, 61-62, 64