Current Psychosocial Treatment Options for PTSD among Youth

Opinion statement Exposure to traumatic events represents a significant and all-too-common experience for many children and youth. A significant number of youth will receive a diagnosis of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a debilitating condition that without treatment will contribute to contemporaneous and long-term negative health consequences. Psychotherapy often has been advocated as the first line in PTSD treatments, and existing interventions have been primarily based on treating individual symptoms. Nevertheless, the deleterious effects of PTSD reverberate beyond the youth; parents, caregivers, and other social influences (e.g., romantic partners) report high levels of distress due the youth’s struggles with their symptoms or due to their own feelings of guilt, shame, or helplessness. Recognizing that social agents are a significant factor in both PTSD recovery, reduction in problematic behaviors, and caregiver stress, there is a surge of PTSD treatments that have been modified to include, either directly or indirectly, social agents. Although still in the beginning stages of development, these treatments hold much promise in treating PTSD and secondary symptoms of the child and reducing distress in others.