Assisting Veterans with Posttraumatic Stress

A promising new treatment for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) will be used nationally, thanks to an EDC team that collaborated with researchers from the U.S. Veterans Administration on a program to train mental health clinicians in its use.

EDC prepared manuals, videos, and other materials for a January training-of-trainers conference on “Cognitive Processing Therapy” or CPT, developed by Dr. Patricia Resick and her colleagues at the Women’s Division of the National Center for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. This initial cadre of trainers and consultants will in turn train and provide supervision to VA clinicians who adopt and use CPT nationally. In Phase 2 of the project, the VA will train an additional 600 therapists at more than 20 regional conferences.

CPT is a 12–13-session behavioral psychotherapy that can be used with both individuals and groups. A trial of CPT conducted by Candice Monson, PhD, at the VA Boston Healthcare System, showed impressive benefits for military-related forms of the illness. A study of veterans (75 percent from Vietnam) showed that 40 percent of the participants who received the treatment had a remission in their PTSD.