Brief Novel Therapies for PTSD: Written Exposure Therapy

Overview

Journal Curr Treat Options Psychiatry

Specialty Psychiatry

Date 2019 Jun 28

PMID 31245252

Citations 9

Authors

Johanna Thompson-Hollands

Brian P Marx

Denise M Sloan

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Purpose Of Review: Written Exposure Therapy (WET) is a 5-session exposure-based intervention for the treatment of posttraumatic 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 Findings: WET 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 to 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.

Summary: WET represents a viable option for the efficacious, brief treatment of PTSD and may have significant strengths compared to other manualized psychotherapeutic approaches.

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