Current Psychiatry Reviews - Volume 11, Issue 3, 2015

The term resilience is too often poorly operationalized and loosely conceptualized. Historically, it has been defined as a trait, characteristic, or collection of resources that facilitates healthy adjustment to a potentially traumatic event (PTE) and has typically been measured at one point in time. More recently, it has been defined as an outcome, or a successful course of adaptation following exposure to a severe and overwh Read More

The current review describes evidence for the critical role of executive functioning in the development and/or maintenance of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). As part of this review, we describe associations between executive functioning, intrusive thoughts, and PTSD. Moreover, we explore evidence for the utility of cognitive training programs to improve executive functioning as a potential novel treatment approach. Read More

Interest in psychotherapeutic interventions for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) populations that address variants of commonly co-occurring trauma sequelae is emerging. Specifically, treatment approaches that enhance an individual’s capacity to experience and successfully modulate emotion, function interpersonally, and access social support are of particular value. The present paper briefly describes emotional and s Read More

This paper presents a narrative review of psychological treatments for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that foster cognitive flexibility. A literature search identifying all peer-reviewed studies that have been published in English resulted in 28 reports on a range of interventions. After a brief introduction to cognitive flexibility (CF), a review of all relevant studies is provided. Overall, there is some evidence for CF playing a Read More

Moral injury and acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) are both topics that have only quite recently been introduced into the mental health literature. Although inquiries into these two domains have been advanced independent from one another, both challenge various aspects of the traditional medical model for diagnosing, understanding, and treating psychiatric problems. This article explores complementary possibil Read More

Many of the most widely-used, empirically-supported treatments for mental health problems are comprised of some form of cognitive restructuring techniques that aim to replace clients’ pathological or distorted attributional processes with new, healthy appraisals of the situation or self. Yet, conventional cognitive restructuring techniques may be less effective when attempting to treat guilt and shame associated with distress Read More