Consider that only a small minority of those experiencing an extreme trauma experience PTSD, consider also that most people experiencing such an event try not to think/talk about it, is it really plausible that PTSD arises from arrested information processing? If not why are we subjecting clients and therapists to a painful procedure, trauma focussed CBT/EMDR, that they are likely to default from?
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It is true that with trauma focussed CBT or EMDR about 50% of those undergoing these treatments in randomised controlled trials fully recover from PTSD, nevertheless compliance in routine practise appears much less . But it is possible that to the extent that these treatments do work they do so for reasons other than achieving ‘full processing of the traumatic memory’. More plausibly as a side effect of these interventions they learn experientially that the ‘war zone’ map of their personal world that they have employed since the trauma, leads nowhere and they revert to a pre-trauma map. Oftentimes the prime concern of a victim is not what did happen but what could/should have happened i.e it is not the trauma per se.
Dr Mike Scott