New PTSD therapy effective in veterans

A type of psychotherapy successfully trialled on Australian war veterans should be used to treat post-traumatic stress disorder in the general community, an expert says.

Cognitive processing therapy, which focuses on a person’s beliefs and interpretations of trauma, was found in a recent trial to be more effective for PTSD than conventional therapy, which focuses on reliving traumatic experiences in detail.

Fifty-nine veterans with service-related PTSD were randomised to the two approaches, provided by psychologists and social