My new article on PTSD just appeared as a Guest Blog on Scientific American’s web site.  Please check it out.  Here’s the first paragraph as a teaser:

A few weeks ago an article in the Scientific American Twitter stream caught my eye.  EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) once again debuted as a “promising new treatment” for PTSD.  EMDR, which has been repeatedly called “promising” over the last two decades, works only about as well for PTSD as other psychological treatment modalities with which it competes, primarily cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and exposure therapy.  These so-called trauma focused treatments (TFT) all garner similar results. TFT have large effects in clinical trials, with two important caveats: 1) the enthusiasm of their various advocates bias the study results towards the treatment the researchers prefer; and, 2) they are effective for a significant number of carefully selected PTSD patients. The sad truth, however, is that current short-term treatments are not the solution for most patients with PTSD. Trial criteria often exclude those with comorbid disorders, multiple traumas, complex PTSD, and suicidal ideation, among others.  Even when they are included, comorbid patients drop out of treatment studies at a much higher rate than those with simple PTSD, a problem that has implications for clinical practice….

The heart of the argument is that short term treatments are not effective for the vast majority of those with PTSD, and that violence prevention is the only real cure.