Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a psychological condition where the patients generally have trouble to function normally in their daily lives and social context which involves both intrapersonal and interpersonal interactions (J. Cukor et al, 2009). This kind of anxiety disorder often occurs to people who experiences traumatic events such as sexual assault, rape, tragic death of loved one, war, or natural disaster causing them to have symptoms such as flashbacks, nightmares, high level of arousal, emotionally numb, and avoidance of triggering stimuli (Schnurr et al, 2007). The nature of PTSD’s symptoms is causing distress to the patient and usually render them unable to have a normal life pre-tragic event. This has become a concern …show more content…
Procedures of CISD include in groups single session therapy that lasts for 3 to 4 hours and the treatment is conducted within 24 to 72 hours of severe trauma (Lilienfeld, 2007). The rationale behind this treatment is that people that have undergone similar traumatic experiences can share their concerns and provide social support to each other with the goals to prevent the symptoms of PTSD from surfacing. Preventing the symptoms of PTSD is one of the advantages of CISD because prevention is always better than cure and since PTSD’s symptoms disrupt the daily lives of patients, it is best to eliminate any chances of the symptoms occurring in the first place. However, a literature review on Potentially Harmful Therapies (PHTs) had listed CISD as having an adverse long-term effect and is considered harmful because it interrupts natural healing process of the patients (Lilienfeld, 2007). Besides, CISD as a type of intervention to prevent the symptoms of PTSD is said to contribute to the patients’ self-fulfilling prophecy in which CISD in a way creates the initially non-existing symptoms with the treatment session enhancing the idea causing the patients to unconsciously accept and eventually exhibit the symptoms (Lilienfeld, 2007). Generally, CISD is not effective as a treatment for PTSD based on several previously conducted RCTs as the reduction of symptoms shown by the patients is …show more content…
This type of treatment has its basis in the concept of learning and conditioning and it focuses on the behavioral aspect of patients with PTSD (J. Cukor et al, 2009). Some of the approaches under CBT are (1) exposure therapy where the patients are exposed to real or imaginary situation similar to their traumatic experiences, (2) relaxation training which includes breathing technique, meditation, and muscle relaxation, (3) behavior rehearsal that trains PTSD patients in problem-solving, social skills, and to change their PTSD influenced habits, and (4) operant procedures where the concept of behavioral rewards and punishments is manipulated systematically by the therapist (Tolin, 2010). CBT has more rationale than CISD as the therapy targets specific symptom which causing the patient most distress and the improvement in one symptom will usually absolve the rest but if that is not the case, CBT will then be conducted to improve the others as well (!!!!). CBT has a higher efficacy when compared to psychodynamic therapy and most conducted RCTs had also proven that CBT surpasses other types of treatment for PTSD (Tolin, 2010). In terms of its effect prevalence, patients treated with CBT had revealed stable or more evident improvement when the follow-up was done even almost a year after the therapy has been