A Multi-Modal Treatment for Incest Survivors: Preliminary Outcome Data

Abstract

This paper describes a pilot study of a 1-year multi-modal treatment for incest survivors, incorporating individual psychotherapy, group psychotherapy, and pharmacotherapy. The treatment was designed to provide a therapeutic context in which the affective intensity and meaning originally attached to the traumatic experience could be tolerated, and in which a thoughtful, reflective construction of the impact of the trauma could be developed. PTSD symptoms decreased in all participants, with all but one no longer meeting the diagnosis at post-treatment and follow-up. Using a narrative methodology, maladaptive schemas and overwhelming affects, ‘trauma themes’, were also assessed to understand the survivors' views about themselves, others and the world around them. Participants demonstrated a steady pattern of improvement in the resolution of trauma themes. A discussion of the complex posttraumatic response to incest is included, as is a brief description of the treatment.