Group therapy time

[BigV]

Sarge

This is a story from the local university about a new treatment for PTSD. I am absolutely not a doctor, but I do keep up on the news. This sounded very interesting. I hope you can make some use of this information.


Learning to not be afraid: UW psychologists treat PTSD with drug known to enhance learning

Oct. 11, 2011
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“It may seem counterintuitive to ask someone to repeatedly recount an event that is so scary,” said Lori Zoellner, director of UW’s Center for Anxiety & Traumatic Stress. “But as someone does this he or she begins to look at the memory differently and the memory has less control over their lives." The once terrifying movie becomes not so upsetting.

The PTSD therapy – called prolonged exposure therapy – works well. About two-thirds of the PTSD patients treated with it no longer have PTSD after 10 therapy sessions lasting 90 minutes each.

But Zoellner, along with colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Texas at Austin, has a plan to make it even better and faster. In a new study, the researchers scaled down the therapy to six daily 1-hour sessions. Each session is followed by a placebo pill or a dose of a drug called methylene blue, which is believed to help strengthen learning and insights that occurred during the therapy session. The compound is FDA-approved for other uses and has been used safely for years with few significant side effects.

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