During psychotherapy a man describes a dream, “I am hiding in the cellar from soldiers who are searching for me. Overwhelmed by anxiety, I know that if they find me they will kill me on the spot . . . Then I am standing in line for selection; the smell of burning flesh is in the air and I can hear shots fired. Faceless and undernourished people with striped uniforms march away to the crematoriums. Then I am in a pit full of dead, skeletal bodies. I struggle desperately to bury the cadavers in the mud . . . I feel guilty for what has happened, though I do not know why.

Background

The current study evaluated the effectiveness and safety of intensive prolonged exposure (PE) targeting adolescent patients with complex posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and comorbid disorders following multiple interpersonal trauma.

Background: Asylum seekers and refugees have been claimed to be at increased risk of developing complex posttraumatic stress disorder (complex PTSD). Consequently, it has been recommended that refugees be treated with present-centred or phased treatment rather than stand-alone trauma-focused treatment. This recommendation has contributed to a clinical practice of delaying or waiving trauma-focused treatment in refugees with PTSD.

Abstract: There is considerable evidence that optimism, the predisposition to have generalized favorable expectancies for the future, is associated with numerous desirable outcomes. Few studies have examined the association of optimism with emotional distress following the death of a loved one. Doing so is important, because optimism may be an important target for interventions for post-loss psychopathology.