A Preliminary Report Comparing Trauma-Focused and Present-Focused Group Therapy Against a Wait-Listed Condition Among Childhood Sexual Abuse Survivors with PTSD

Abstract

Summary Childhood sexual abuse (CSA) is a prevalent problem and the psychological and behavioral consequences are great. Despite this, we are still in the early stages of understanding how best to treat survivors of childhood sexual abuse. One fundamental question for treating CSA survivors is whether it is necessary or helpful for psychotherapists to focus on working through survivors' memories of childhood trauma in order to reduce current distress and improve functioning, or is it better to focus on current problems in living? Consequently, a pilot study was conducted among women who have been sexually abused as children and who meet the criteria for current PTSD as a result of that abuse. CSA survivors with PTSD were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: (1) a trauma-focused group psychotherapy, (2) a present-focused group psychotherapy, and (3) a waiting list no-treatment control condition. In this article, preliminary data on the question of whether group treatment of either type is better than no treatment is presented. Those who received group therapy resulted in a significant reduction in two kinds of trauma symptoms, dissociation and a sexual trauma index, and in two types of interpersonal problems, being vindictive and being nonassertive. When those individuals in the study with a history of having been sexually revictimized in the previous six months were isolated, at post-treatment only 38% of the women who were in the treatment group were revictimized compared to 67% of women in the wait-list condition. Given the small sample size, these differences were not statistically significant. However, a 50% reduction in revictimization is clinically significant. Further research with a larger sample of women is needed to confirm these findings and to test for differential effects of trauma focused group therapy and present focused group therapy.