A Multi-Modal Treatment for Incest Survivors: Preliminary Outcome Data

A Multi-Modal Treatment for Incest Survivors: Preliminary Outcome Data

This paper describes a pilot study of a 1‐year multi‐modal treatment for incest survivors, incorporating individual psychotherapy, group psychotherapy, and pharmacotherapy. The treatment was designed to provide a therapeutic context in which the affective intensity and meaning originally attached to the traumatic experience could be tolerated, and in which a thoughtful, reflective construction of the impact of the trauma could be developed. PTSD symptoms decreased in all participants, with all but one no longer meeting the diagnosis at post‐treatment and follow‐up. Using a narrative methodology, maladaptive schemas and overwhelming affects, ‘trauma themes’, were also assessed to understand the survivors' views about themselves, others and the world around them. Participants demonstrated a steady pattern of improvement in the resolution of trauma themes. A discussion of the complex posttraumatic response to incest is included, as is a brief description of the treatment.

Clinical Psychology