PTSD Treatment Effective PTSD Treatment

¶ … PTSD Treatment Effective PTSD Treatment Adult Psychopathology Treatment I Dr. Benjamin Jurek Two authoritative sources were reviewed on the topic of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). One source was a textbook authored by numerous experts and provided details of their clinical experiences treating PTSD in conjunction with their knowledge of relevant empirical research. That source also covered the full range of treatments available. The second source was a literature review detailing the relative effectiveness of different selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) in the treatment of PTSD.

That source was limited in scope to one class of pharmacotherapy but still identified an important gap in the empirical literature currently available: namely, the absence of studies considering the relative effectiveness of combined modalities in treating PTSD. It also concluded that SSRI-based treatments are more effective in the long-term than when limited to the shorter term. Summary The first source reviewed was the book Effective Treatment for PTSD: Practice Guidelines from the International Society for Traumatic Stress (Guilford, 2008).

The book incorporates the input from a wide range of experts in the field of treating post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Precisely because the work draws from multidisciplinary research and clinical experience, it provides a comprehensive source of information for clinicians interested in treating PTSD. It details the relative strengths and weaknesses of many different theoretical models and treatment interventions.

In dedicated chapters individually authored by clinical and research subject matter experts in the field of PTSD treatment, it covers all of the traditional treatment modalities such as group therapy, psychodynamic therapy, psychosocial rehabilitation, hypnosis, couple and family therapy, pharmacotherapy, and cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), as well as more recent cutting-edge approaches in the field, such as eye-movement desensitization and reprocessing. The second source, "Long-Term Pharmacotherapy for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder," consists of a 2006 article featured in the peer-reviewed journal CNS Drugs (Vol. 20, No. 6).

That article details the results of a literature review of the treatment of PTSD through long-term pharmacological modalities. More specifically, the article considered numerous studies lasting longer than 14 weeks involving adult and pediatric subjects. It compared the empirical results of previous studies of the effectiveness of the drugs clozapine, fluoxetine, nefazodone, paroxetine, risperidone, sertraline, and valproate.

The literature review concluded that those studies supported the long-term treatment of PTSD with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and that this approach provides an effective means of maintaining positive responses to previous treatment modalities, corresponds to increased quality of life, increases positive patient response to treatment, and that it was responsible for one-third of all improvement in patients receiving treatment for PTSD. The literature review also determined that the response time to pharmacological intervention was directly related to the severity of PTSD symptoms and that long-term (i.e.

At least 14 weeks) treatment was significantly more effective than shorter-term treatment and that earlier discontinuation of SSRIs was associated with both increased relapse risk and increased symptom severity. Significant Differences in the Sources Reviewed The most important difference between the two sources is that the first addresses the full range of treatment modalities for PTSD (including pharmacotherapy) whereas the second source considers only the much narrower range of pharmacological modalities using different SSRIs.

The other principal difference between the sources reviewed is that the first included narratives authored by different clinicians and experts and incorporated their anecdotal professional experiences as well as their description of the manner in which their treatment approaches relies on empirical research in each of their different areas of clinical expertise. As a result, that work is an appropriate reference for the available treatment options for PTSD and for the optimal combination of different approaches in specific types of cases.

By contrast, the second source consists only of a literature review of previous research without any narrative contribution from experts apart from the conclusions in each of the studies reviewed. More importantly, this source does not address or consider any non-pharmacological PTSD interventions, much less any combinations of multiple modalities concurrently.

In fact, the authors expressly reference the apparent absence in the available literature of any studies specifically investigating the relative effectiveness of such combined forms of treatment, such as pharmacotherapy and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) or other traditional forms of treatment such as psychodynamic therapy.

In fact, because the relative value of the work is, necessarily, limited to the scope of SSRI-based pharmacotherapy, perhaps the most significant and valuable aspect of it is, precisely, the identification of such a significant gap in the available research literature addressing combined forms of therapy. The authors actually note that this gap is particularly surprising since combined forms of therapy are used so routinely in the treatment of PTSD. Learner's Position on Psychological.