Emotion Focused Therapy in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: A Clinical Case

Abstract

An important number of studies show that emotion-focused therapy is effective in the treatment of patients with posttraumatic stress disorder. The paper describes the experiential emotion-focused psychotherapeutic intervention in a case of posttraumatic stress disorder in complicated grief. First we present a brief description of the main treatment approach for posttraumatic stress disorder in emotion-focused therapy, completed by the case conceptualization model in process-experiential psychotherapy. Then we will present the main research findings, both process and outcome studies, which demonstrated, during the past decades, the efficiency of the emotion-focused approach in the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder and of panic disorder. The case is a 25 years old man experiencing posttraumatic stress disorder and panic attacks with prolonged suffering after the loss of his mother. The case is considered from the process-experiential perspective, starting with the clinical evaluation, followed by the case conceptualization and then the treatment plan.