Control-Focused Behavioral Treatment: A brief intervention for survivors of war and torture.

Abstract

This article briefly reviews the evolution and evidence-base of Control-Focused Behav-ioral Treatment (CFBT), largely self-help-based treatment that involves no cognitive interventions, focuses solely on reducing avoidance behaviors through self-exposure to anxiety-evoking trauma cues, and, unlike other interventions, aims to enhance sense of control over traumatic stressors, rather than anxiety reduction. As such, it is radi-cally different from other interventions in both theory and practice. Our studies have shown improvement rates of 80%-85% with a single treatment session in earthquake survivors. When administered in an average of 6 sessions in war and torture survivors, it achieved 82% reduction in posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSD), leaving 97% of the cases nearly asymptomatic or with only mild PTSD symptoms. Meta-analytical compari-sons suggest that such improvement rates are substantially higher than those achieved by other evidence-based treatments.