Clinical Tools for the Prevention and Treatment of Childhood and Adolescent PTSD

Opinion Statement Posttraumatic stress disordxer (PTSD) represents a chronic and debilitating condition that affects the health and well-being of millions of youth. Traditional approaches focus on psychopharmacologic treatments and psychotherapeutic interventions. Although psychopharmacologic treatments are designed to address underlying physiological manifestations (e.g., hyperarousal, mood instability), they are less effective in modifying the underlying, distorted cognitions that maintain the disorder. Psychotherapeutic interventions are effective in alleviating individual symptoms, but their benefits do not extend to the larger social system that the youth is embedded. Given the importance of social support in treatment prognosis, addressing the larger family system is needed. The most effective approach to PTSD prevention and treatments thus emphasizes a biopsychosocial framework, such as an empirically informed algorithm that incorporates psychopharmacologic treatments, individual interventions, and family intervention approaches in a systematic fashion.