Brief Novel Therapies for PTSD: Written Exposure Therapy

AbstractPurpose of ReviewWritten exposure therapy (WET) is a five-session exposure-based intervention for the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). WET was developed through a series of systematic evaluations of the expressive writing procedure. It is an efficient intervention, requiring limited patient and therapist time, and no between-session assignments. The treatment results in statistically and clinically significant symptom change among individuals, including veterans, with PTSD.Recent FindingsWET has been shown to be non-inferior to cognitive processing therapy (CPT), a more intensive form of PTSD treatment. Additionally, WET resulted in substantially lower rates of treatment dropout compared with CPT (6% versus 39%). Moderator analyses of the rate of symptom change during treatment indicated that WET performed equally well for participants regardless of age, gender, comorbid depression, or estimated full scale IQ.SummaryWET represents a viable option for the efficacious, brief treatment of PTSD and may have significant strengths compared with other manualized psychotherapeutic approaches.
Source: Current Treatment Options in Psychiatry - Category: Psychiatry Source Type: research