Rauch and McLean bridge the gap between neuroscience research and the treatment of PTSD patients. Individuals with PTSD have developed automatic associations between specific stimuli and traumatic events. As a result, these individuals experience intense fear when exposed to the stimuli, even though the original threat is no longer present. This book presents prolonged exposure therapy (PE), a specific manualized exposure therapy program for PTSD. A variant of exposure therapy, PE is a cognitive behavioral approach designed to reduce pathological anxiety and related emotions by helping patients approach relatively safe but distress-provoking thoughts, memories, situations, and stimuli, with the goal of reducing unhelpful emotional reactions to those stimuli. Informed by extensive research but written for clinicians, the book explains how neuroscience can guide our application of the three key components of PE: (1) psychoeducation about the nature of trauma, (2) in vivo exposure to trauma reminders, and (3) imaginal exposure to the memory of the traumatic event followed by processing of the imaginal and other exposures.

Prolonged Exposure Therapy is an effective, highly flexible, and very well researched intervention to reduce the symptoms of PTSD across a variety of traumatized populations. The second edition of Prolonged Exposure Therapy for PTSD: Emotional Processing of Traumatic Experiences, Therapist Guide, along with the accompanying Workbook, provides all of the tools necessary for trained mental health providers to implement this first-line PTSD treatment with their patients. This model is individualized to address the needs of a variety of trauma survivors. Leaders in clinical practice, training, and research in the field of PTSD treatment, the authors have revised the Guide throughout to reflect the many advances in PTSD research that have occurred since the release of the first edition, including key adjustments to the underlying theory as well as additional evidence for modifications and individualization for more complex patient presentations and military populations. The Guide provides a concise but thorough description of the key components of the program, how to implement them, and when and how to consider adaptations.