Enhancing Exposure Therapy for Post-traumatic Stress Disorder

Summary

This study is investigating a new brief psychotherapy for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) which, modifies an already proven psychotherapy for PTSD by adding two new components and modifying several others. The goal of the study is to determine whether this experimental treatment outperforms the well-established standard treatment.

Conditions

• Chronic Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Revisiting the Trauma memories

Patient engages in repeated revisiting of their trauma memory under the guidance of the therapist for about 40 minutes. During each revisiting trial the patient closes their eyes and verbally describes the trauma and the feeling and thoughts experienced during the trauma.

BEHAVIORAL

Processing the trauma memories

The patient and therapist discuss the patient's experience during the trauma revisiting with the goal of helping the patient gain alternative perspectives of the trauma.

BEHAVIORAL

Psychoeducation

Through patient handouts and didactic instruction, the patient learns about the common reactions to trauma and the rationale for exposure therapy.

BEHAVIORAL

Trauma Memory Retrieval Trial

Prior to the start of Imaginal Exposure, the patient is asked to recall a threatening element of their trauma memory for 1 minute. This is followed by a 30-minute rest-period prior to beginning imaginal exposure.

BEHAVIORAL

Exposure to video clips related to the patient's trauma

Patient is seated in front of a computer monitor and instructed to view a 30-min looped video clip that thematically resembles the patient's trauma.

BEHAVIORAL

Breathing retraining

Patient is seated comfortably in a chair and instructed to breathe slowly and deeply in a relaxed manner.

BEHAVIORAL

Exposure Homework

Therapist assists the patient in identifying trauma-related situations/activities that the patient is avoiding and encourages the patient to begin to confront these situations between sessions.

BEHAVIORAL

Compound extinction

The patient repeatedly confronts the truama-related media clip while simultaneously listening to their own trauma script through headphones.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• University of Pennsylvania

  collaborator OTHER

• University of Texas at Austin

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Michael J Telch, Ph.D. · University of Texas at Austin

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

SINGLE

Model

SINGLE_GROUP

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Max Age

65 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2012-04-30

Primary Completion

2020-03-31

Completion

2020-03-31

Countries

• United States

Study Locations