Behavioral Activation Therapy for PTSD
From Matthew Tull, PhD,
Your Guide to Post Traumatic Stress (PTSD).
FREE Newsletter. Sign Up Now!
About.com Health's Disease and Condition content is reviewed by Steven Gans, MD
Researchers published findings showing that a 16-week individual treatment focused on increasing positive and meaningful events in a person's life can successfully reduce PTSD symptoms among veterans with PTSD.

Behavioral Activation
The researchers provided veterans with a type of treatment called behavioral activation. As the name implies, behavioral activation is a behavioral treatment. It focuses on changing behaviors to address problems people might be experiencing.

Behavioral activation was originally developed for the treatment of depression. It is based in the idea that people with depression do not come into contact with positive or rewarding aspects of their environment. For example, a person with depression might feel so bad that they decide not to get out of bed one day. However, by staying in bed, the depressed person does not have potentially rewarding contact with friends and family, making the depression linger or get worse.

How Behavioral Activation Works
In behavioral activation, the main goals are to increase activity levels (and prevent avoidance behaviors) and help the patient take part in positive and rewarding activities which can improve mood.

The patient and therapist come up with a list of activities that the patient values and finds rewarding, such as reconnecting with friends or exercising. The therapist and patient also look at any obstacles that might get in the way of completing these goals. Each week the patient is asked to set goals for how many activities he or she wants to complete outside of session. Throughout the week, the patient then tracks his progress in achieving these goals.

Behavioral Activation for PTSD
Individuals with PTSD may avoid things that remind them of their traumatic event, leading them to withdraw from others and also not allowing them to learn that they can cope with their anxiety. Researchers thought that behavioral activation may be useful in reducing this avoidance among people with PTSD, reducing PTSD symptoms and improving their quality of life.

The Study and its Findings
Researchers provided 11 veterans with PTSD 16 weeks of individual behavioral activation therapy. The veterans worked with the therapists to identify current avoidance behaviors, as well as rewarding and positive goals and activities that they would like to pursue. The veterans tracked their progress in completing these goals and activities throughout the treatment.

The researchers looked at differences in the veterans' PTSD symptoms, depression, and quality of life from the beginning to the end of treatment. By the end of the 16 weeks, they found that:

More than half of the veterans showed a reduction in PTSD symptoms.
Four veterans had their depression reduce.
Four veterans reported that their quality of life had improved.
Summary
Although this study was small, the findings were promising and show that behavioral activation may be a useful way to treat PTSD, especially in regard to its avoidance symptoms. Hopefully, more research will be conducted on this promising PTSD treatment.

Source:

Jakupcak, M., Roberts, L.J., Martell, C., Mulick, P., Michael, S., Reed, R. et al. (2006). A pilot study of behavioral activation for veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 19, 387-391.

This About.com page has been optimized for print. To view this page in its original form, please visit:
http://ptsd.about.com/od/treatment/a/behavioralact.htm

©2007 About.com, Inc., a part of The New York Times Company. All rights reserved.