The Long Term Effectiveness Of Prolonged Exposure Therapy

The term “Psychological trauma” refers to damage wrought from a traumatic event, which that damages one’s ability to cope with stressors. “Trauma” is commonly defined as an exposure to a situation in which a person is confronted with an event that involves actual or threatened death or serious injury, or a threat to self or others’ physical well-being (American Psychiatric Association, 2000). Specific types of client trauma frequently encountered by which therapists and other mental health workers frequently encounter in a clinical setting include sexual abuse, physical , or sexual assault, natural disasters such as earthquakes or tsunamis, domestic violence, and school or/and work related violence (James & Gilliland, 2001). Traumatic

Rape Trauma Syndrome has three stages, Acute Phase, Outward Adjustment Phase and the Resolution Phase.17 The Acute Phase occurs after the initial attack (initial shock, anxiety).The Resolution Phase where the assault is no longer the focus of their life and have moved beyond it. The Outward Adjustment Phase is the stage that could last months or years and the one that the military system can affect positively with appropriate mental health care. In the Outward Adjustment Phase an individual may appear normal but have internal turmoil.18 Within this phase a majority of male survivors attempt to process it with two primary coping techniques: Minimization, the “everything is fine” and Suppression, act as if it did not happen.19 Men may use these coping mechanisms based on maintaining society’s definition of a man, so they try to minimize, suppress or internalize their perceived feelings of being weak or less of a man. This may cause anxiety in which they withdraw from relationships and avoid seeking

The incidence of intimate partner violence is quite common amongst individuals in the United States. As a result, PTSD and depressive disorder have been consequences associated with this issue, further adding to numerous public health issues that our society is facing. Intimate partner violence not only affects the victim, but the families and society as well. Therefore, efforts must be made to decrease the prevalence of IPV, as well as assisting those individuals who have been victimized in this issue. Past research has associated PTSD with individuals with sexual abuse, but not specific to IPV. One example in particular, included research done amongst women

Clients who have experiences rape in the past can deal with traumatic reposes after the event. Many of them have to deal with the effect of the rape, such as anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Clients may feel that they are held back because of the trauma that happened to them. Clients could feel helpless and be reminded every day of the trauma that they had to endure. The topic of this paper is the use of trauma informed practice using social work practice in women who have PTSD and other trauma symptoms from enduring a past rape.

It is a beautiful, sunny day in Miami, Florida. The birds are chirping, and the fresh ocean breeze is rustling the leaves. Steve Weston is trying to make the most out of this hot, summer day. He spots a moving truck outside his window. A young girl with dark hair and bright yellow glasses and what appears to be her father get out of the truck and go into the house next door. Steve was not expecting new neighbors so soon. All of the sudden, Steve hears loud banging noises, one after the other after the other. To others that is the sound of a nail gun going off, but to him that is the sound of the bullets firing from an M240 machine gun. He is transported to the battlefield where he lost his best friend and wife, Caroline Jones. After Steve came

(Oltmanns,Emery, 2015) A trauma may include rape, which in Melinda Sordino’s case is what she experienced. Melinda Sordino can be diagnosed with posttraumatic stress disorder, as opposed to acute stress disorder, because her disturbance after the trauma had lasted longer than a month. Symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder include intrusive re-experiencing, avoidance of reminders of the trauma, increased arousal or reactivity, negative moods or thoughts, and often dissociation. (Oltmanns,Emery, 2015) Weeks after the terrifying experience, Melinda Sordino experienced all of

Sexual violence can cause a survivor to have psychological, emotional, and physical effects. These effects aren't easy to cope with or

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is classified as an anxiety disorder that can develop after an individual has observed and/or experienced an extreme traumatic event that involved actual or threatened death or serious injury to one’s self or another (APA, 2000). An extreme traumatic event can include, but is not limited to, military combat, terrorist attacks, natural or manmade disasters, sexual assault, physical assault, robbery, and torture (APA, 2000). The type of traumatic event could influence the way in which medical and mental health care professionals assess, conceptualize, and subsequently treat the individuals with a PTSD diagnosis. For this reason, sexual

Existing controlled examinations of intervention efficacy specific to only sexual assault and rape are presently minimal in comparison to intervention examinations of combination or other types of trauma (Regehr, Alaggia, Dennis, Pitts, & Saini, 2013). Psychotherapeutic interventions that fail to differentiate sexual assault and rape victims from other types of trauma victims may decrease the treatment effectiveness or inadvertently harm participants in this subgroup. Trauma associated from rape or sexual assault differs from other forms of trauma and treatment efficacy should be examined in this manner. Trauma from rape or sexual assault entail symptoms of PTSD, depression, suicidal ideations and sexual dysfunction. Individuals may also indicate feelings of vulnerability, loss of control, fear, shame, self-blame, societal blame and stigma (Russell & Davis, 2007; Regehr et al., 2013; Ullman &Peter-Hagene, 2014). This research proposal intends to explore the long term effectiveness of Prolonged Exposure Therapy (PE) at reducing distress and trauma explicitly for adult victims of sexual assault and rape.

Steinglass and colleagues have found little evidence for the effectiveness of exposure therapy for treating eating disorders. Even with the previous research described above, results of those studies were not promising because of small sample sizes, and result indicating only small statistically significant differences between exposure treatment groups and control groups. In an effort to continue to strengthen the utility and safety of exposure therapy, Steinglass et al. (2007) examined the effectiveness of D-cycloserine in an exposure therapy intervention.

Rape trauma syndrome is comprised of three phases of the human response after a sexual assault occurs (O'Donohue, 2014). Burgess and Holmstrom finalized their brainstorm in 1974 (O'Donohue, 2014). The first phase is acute disorganization, which occurs within the few days or weeks after the event. Victims may experience anxiety attacks, crying spells, denial that the event took place, or even have a difficult time adapting back to their everyday activities (O'Donohue, 2014) . The second phase is referred to as the outward adjustment phase in which there are five main coping techniques. Minimization, dramatization, suppression, explanation, and flight are all coping skills commonly found during this phase (O'Donohue, 2014). Victims are most likely to want to seek help during this phase of their journey. The final phase is the resolution phase in which the assault is no longer the main focus on the victims life (O'Donohue, 2014). Although it is highly unlikely that the victim will ever forget the assault, the goal is to help them forget as much of it as

Research in this area is extremely important because so many people are uneducated about sexual assault and rape. For the purpose of this paper, I conducted your research by utilizing news articles, empirical articles, the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program (UCR) and the United States’ Department of Justice and several websites who advocate against sexual assault and rape. In addition, I included an article and its methodology of the peer reviewed article entitled Trauma Exposure, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Problem Drinking in Sexual Assault Survivors.

“Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), specifically exposure therapy, has garnered a great deal of empirical support in the literature for the treatment of anxiety disorders” (Gerardi et al., 2010). Exposure therapy is an established PTSD treatment (Chambless & Ollendick, 2001) and so is a benchmark for comparing other therapies (Taylor et al, 2003). “Exposure therapy typically involves the patient repeatedly confronting the feared stimulus in a graded manner, either in imagination or in vivo. Emotional processing is an essential component of exposure therapy” (Gerardi et al., 2010). “Exposure therapy in the virtual environment allows the participant to experience a sense of presence in an immersive, computer-generated, three-dimensional,

Exposure techniques allow for a controlled and systematic method of bringing Jakki into contact with feared events, dreams and people in her life. The therapist and Jakki will work together to develop a functional assessment, hierarchy of feared stimuli or events (from highly to mildly distressing), addressing each from high to low. Exposure needs to continue until Jakki’s stress level drops by at least half. By using exposure techniques, both vivo and in vivo, Jakki’s fear structure can be broken, emotional processing can occur, resulting in a new ability to cope and an increased tolerance of anxiety and uncertainty (Wenzel, 2013).

Imagine being in a situation where you were drunk at a party and a stranger offers to take you home. However, instead of taking you home, they take you to their place and you ended up being a victim of rape. After that situation, one would feel traumatized because they would have emotional disturbance because they keep remembering that night. This is called Rape Trauma Syndrome because they would feel depressed, angry, and shocked that this happened to them. In this article, I learned that there are programs that can help with victims who have experience these types of events. For instance, the article states that there are there are two types of therapy that helps as follows: “Self-assertion training and supportive group therapy belong to the traditional forms of treatment” (Schneider 2001:587). In order for anyone to let go of their traumatizing past, they have to talk about it. Although it is hard for anyone to talk about those situations in detail, it is better than keeping it bottled inside.