Intensive trauma-focused therapy with victims of crime

Abstract

Intensive trauma-focused psychotherapy is a relatively recent clinical practice innovation that has the potential to reduce treatment time, risk, and dropout rate while improving treatment efficiency. We conducted an open trial of trauma-focused intensive therapy featuring progressive counting (PC) and eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) for 61 multiply-traumatized treatment-seeking victims of crime. Results showed strong participant retention as well as significant improvement at two weeks and 12 weeks post-treatment, with large to very large effect sizes on all outcomes, including posttraumatic stress and related symptoms, severity of primary presenting problems, quality of life, and overall stability and level of functioning. Outcomes were similar for PC and EMDR. The mean treatment time was 30.73hours, or a little less than a week, enabling participants to quickly move on with their lives. Intensive trauma-focused psychotherapy may represent an important advance in the delivery of psychotherapy.