POST TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER

Management : Psychotherapeutic interventions

SYAFINAZ ALI ZAINI 08.5.25

Many forms of psychotherapy have been advocated for trauma-related problems such as PTSD. Basic counseling practices common to many treatment responses for PTSD include education about the condition and provision of safety and support.

The psychotherapy programs with the strongest demonstrated efficacy include : 1) 2) 3) 4) 5) cognitive behavioral programs variants of exposure therapy stress inoculation training (SIT) variants of cognitive therapy (CT) Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) 6) and many combinations of these procedures

In treatment for PTSD, patients will:

1. Explore their thoughts and feelings about the trauma
1. Work through feelings of guilt, selfblame, and mistrust 3. Learn how to cope with and intrusive memories 4. Address problems PTSD life and relationships

Trauma-focused cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT)

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) seeks to change the way a trauma victim feels and acts by changing the patterns of thinking or behavior, or both, responsible for negative emotions. CBT has been proven to be an effective treatment for PTSD and is currently considered the standard of care for PTSD.

In CBT, individuals learn to identify thoughts that make them feel afraid or upset and replace them with less distressing thoughts. The goal is to understand how certain thoughts about events cause PTSD-related stress.

Many of these therapy methods have a significant element of exposure and have demonstrated success in treating the primary problems of PTSD and co-occurring depressive symptoms.

Exposure therapy A type of cognitive behavioral therapy that involves assisting trauma survivors to re-experience distressing trauma-related memories and reminders in order to facilitate habituation and successful emotional processing of the trauma memory. Most exposure therapy programs include both imaginal confrontation with the traumatic memories and real-life exposure to trauma reminders; this therapy modality is well supported by clinical evidence.

Family Therapy
Family therapy, is a branch of psychotherapy that works with families and couples in intimate relationships to nurture change and development. It tends to view change in terms of the systems of interaction between family members. Family therapy uses a range of counseling and other techniques including:

1. communication theory 2. media and communications psychology 3. psychoeducation 4. psychotherapy 5. relationship education 6. systemic coaching 7. systems theory 8. reality therapy 9. attachment-focused family therapy 10. the genogram

3. EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing)

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a comprehensive, integrative psychotherapy approach. It contains elements of many effective such as psychodynamic, cognitive behavioral, interpersonal, experiential, and bodycentered therapies.

EMDR psychotherapy is an information processing therapy and uses an eight phase approach to address the experiential contributors of a wide range of pathologies. It attends to the past experiences that have set the groundwork for pathology, the current situations that trigger dysfunctional emotions, beliefs and sensations, and the positive experience needed to enhance future adaptive behaviors and mental health.

8 PHASES OF TREATMENT

Phase 1: History and Treatment Planning Phase 2: Preparation Phase 3: Assessment - Reprocessing Phase 4: Desensitization Phase 5: Installation Phase 6: Body scan Phase 7: Closure Phase 8: Reevaluation


On no soul doth Allah Place a burden greater than it can bear.
(Al-Baqarah 2:286)