Table of Contents
What is the effectiveness of prolonged exposure?
PE therapy is effective in helping people overcome PTSD generally. It also helps in reducing related suicidal thinking, excessive guilt, anxiety, and depression. Studies have generally found that PE therapy produces symptom improvement in 80% to 90% of people who do it. Using PE to Treat PTSD Prolonged exposure is typically provided over a period of about three months with weekly individual sessions, resulting in eight to 15 sessions overall. The original intervention protocol was described as nine to 12 sessions, each 90 minutes in length (Foa & Rothbaum, 1998). Who can benefit from exposure therapy? People who are struggling with PTSD and anxiety disorders can significantly benefit from exposure therapy. In studies on PTSD patients and exposure therapy, up to 90% of participants found either significant relief or moderate relief from their symptoms. The PE protocol contains the following components: 1) psychoeducation regarding treatment rationale and common reactions to trauma; 2) breathing retraining, a form of relaxation; 3) in vivo exposure, or appoaching avoided trauma-related but objectively safe activities, situations, or places; and 4) imaginal exposure, … Exposure therapy can be an effective treatment for anxiety disorders. In fact, around 60–90% of people have either no symptoms or very mild symptoms of their original disorder upon completion of their course of exposure therapy.
What is the purpose of prolonged exposure?
Prolonged Exposure (PE) is a psychotherapy—or talk therapy— for PTSD. It is one specific type of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. PE teaches you to gradually approach trauma-related memories, feelings, and situations that you have been avoiding since your trauma. Exposure therapy is a well-established treatment for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) that requires the patient to focus on and describe the details of a traumatic experience. Exposure methods include confrontation with frightening, yet realistically safe, stimuli that continues until anxiety is reduced. The problem with prolonged exposure is that it also has made a number of veterans violent, suicidal, and depressed, and it has a dropout rate that some researchers put at more than 50 percent, the highest dropout rate of any PTSD therapy that has been widely studied so far. The most common treatment that includes exposure is called cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). A key element of CBT is talking about thoughts, fears, and feelings. I often find that simply talking through thoughts about a topic exposes people to their fears. Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT) Trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy is a type of psychotherapy that provides help for adults healing from childhood trauma.
What is an example of prolonged exposure therapy?
Case Example: Terry, a 42-year-old Earthquake Survivor. Through the use of repeated imaginal exposures, Terry slowly began to feel more conformable with discussing the trauma and telling people about his experience. Initial reactions to trauma can include exhaustion, confusion, sadness, anxiety, agitation, numbness, dissociation, confusion, physical arousal, and blunted affect. Ever since people’s responses to overwhelming experiences have been systematically explored, researchers have noted that a trauma is stored in somatic memory and expressed as changes in the biological stress response. Smiling when discussing trauma is a way to minimize the traumatic experience. It communicates the notion that what happened “wasn’t so bad.” This is a common strategy that trauma survivors use in an attempt to maintain a connection to caretakers who were their perpetrators. Similarly, the PE manual (Foa et al., 2007) recommends that individuals at imminent risk of suicide and those who have attempted suicide or engaged in serious non-suicidal self-injury in the past 3 months should be excluded from treatment until these behaviors are sufficiently stabilized. Similarly, the PE manual (Foa et al., 2007) recommends that individuals at imminent risk of suicide and those who have attempted suicide or engaged in serious non-suicidal self-injury in the past 3 months should be excluded from treatment until these behaviors are sufficiently stabilized. Similarly, the PE manual (Foa et al., 2007) recommends that individuals at imminent risk of suicide and those who have attempted suicide or engaged in serious non-suicidal self-injury in the past 3 months should be excluded from treatment until these behaviors are sufficiently stabilized.
When is prolonged exposure therapy not recommended?
Similarly, the PE manual (Foa et al., 2007) recommends that individuals at imminent risk of suicide and those who have attempted suicide or engaged in serious non-suicidal self-injury in the past 3 months should be excluded from treatment until these behaviors are sufficiently stabilized.
What are the benefits of exposure?
Exposure therapy can be a powerful tool to help with anxiety and fear-based mental conditions by working to decrease both avoidances of the fear and any symptoms associated with facing it. Research shows that it can be an effective treatment for conditions like PTSD and others. During exposure therapy, a therapist guides you through the process of confronting whatever causes you anxiety. There are three techniques one might experience in exposure therapy: in vivo, imaginal and flooding. A fear-inducing situation activates a small group of neurons in the amygdala. Exposure therapy silences these fear neurons, causing them to be less active. As a result of this reduced activity, fear responses are alleviated. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) often incorporates the same systematic desensitization methods used in exposure therapy. CBT also focuses on the specific thoughts and beliefs you have associated with the phobias. Sessions typically last 90 minutes and occur once a week for approximately three months, though treatment can be shorter at two months or longer at 15 weeks. Prolonged exposure therapy treatment involves imaginal exposure, directly facing a fear, learning about PTSD, and retraining how you breathe. EMDR therapy sets up a learning state that allows these experiences to be stored appropriately in the brain. This is the main difference between exposure therapy and EMDR; in other words, the individual is not re-exposed to the trauma.
Does exposure therapy work long term?
How effective is it? Exposure therapy is effective for the treatment of anxiety disorders. According to EBBP.org, about 60 to 90 percent of people have either no symptoms or mild symptoms of their original disorder after completing their exposure therapy. But in general, it is possible to perform exposure therapy yourself. If you truly believe you can handle exposure therapy, it is one of the most powerful ways to reduce anxiety. Limitations of Exposure Therapy Some professionals believe that exposure therapy may make symptoms worse, especially when dealing with PTSD. Additionally, exposure therapy is difficult work that causes people to feel and confront things that they have worked hard to avoid. Exposures do not cause harm, but rather set up situations in which the client fears that harm will occur. As with all treatments, however, there are steps a therapist can take to minimize the risk and maximize the benefit of exposure therapy. Prolonged Exposure therapy, developed by Edna Foa, Ph. D. , Director of the Center for the Treatment and Study of Anxiety (CTSA) at the University of Pennsylvania, is an evidence based treatment for chronic Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and problems related to trauma. In fact, it could backfire and make the patient even more frightened of that thing. This is particularly true of exposure therapy, which can backfire badly, but even the tape recordings or constant flow of images involved in flooding can be too much for some patients.