Individual psychotherapy for post-traumatic stress disorder.

Most forms of psychotherapy have been proposed as treatments for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), even though there is an absence of sophisticated outcome literature and few validated conclusions. The Koach project suggests that patients, therapists, and objective outcome measures differ significantly in their assessments of the usefulness of therapy. Clearly, entrenched PTSD is very resistant to psychotherapy and many patients remain symptomatic in spite of the best efforts of their therapists. Just talking about the trauma does not seem to be sufficient, yet current outcome studies suggest that exposure and the cognitive reworking of PTSD memories are the critical elements to treatment. Moreover, the personal characteristics of some individuals make them particularly responsive to treatment.