In routine practice the treatment of PTSD is often ineffective, IAPT’s recovery rate with this disorder is around 16%. But the operation of certain rules of thumb sabotage treatment across the board. Which, if any, of the following saboteurs do you operate on:
- It is probably PTSD because it was an awful incident
- It is probably PTSD because there arte flashbacks and nightmares
- It is probably PTSD because of a high score on the Impact of Event Scale
- Whatever it actually is trauma focused CBT/EMDR offers the best way of resolving it
- Formulation rules anyway
- You can’t treat more than one disorder at a time
- Issues need to be resolved first
In January 2018 I was due to make a presentation at an Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) Conference, titled ‘Approaching Patients With Trauma – Can IAPT help patients with trauma?, but was overtaken by my own trauma of falling down the stairs at home! Here is the link to the presentation:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/21ye8ewczvmfamn/IAPT-January-23rd-2018-Birmingham-City-Football-Ground.pdf?dl=0
The good news is that I was able to specify how IAPT might change its’ practice, but unfortunately the chances of this happening anytime soon are remote, openness to debate with those outside of IAPT is conspicuous by its’ abscence.
Dr Mike Scott