Promising Psychological Treatments for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

Abstract

Trauma-focused therapies, particularly prolonged exposure and cognitive processing therapy, are recommended as first-line treatments for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). However, a subset of patients refuse, fail to respond, or respond only partially to these interventions. This chapter outlines numerous promising adaptions of and augmentation methods for existing evidence-based PTSD treatments in an effort to improve outcomes for all treatment seekers. These include couple- and family-based adaptions of PTSD treatment, augmenting psychotherapy with pharmacological and neurostimulation interventions, the use of Internet-based and smartphone-based platforms to deliver PTSD treatment, and the use of complementary and integrative medicine approaches to supplement evidence-based psychotherapy. Also reviewed is the evidence for using complementary and integrative medicine approaches to target sleep disturbances. Although many of these approaches are in preliminary stages of development and require further study, they represent important progress in helping clinicians better serve the many needs of individuals with PTSD.