The Effectiveness of the Rewind Technique in Treating PTSD Symptoms of Intrusiveness and Avoidance in Violence Survivors

Abstract

Objective: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a disorder that dramatically affects the lives of many individuals and negatively impacts public health. Treating PTSD symptoms is often time-consuming, and exhausting for both victim and therapist. This article describes the initial results of a study aimed to test the three-month effectiveness of the Rewind Technique. The Rewind Technique is a therapy shown to reduce PTSD symptoms of Intrusiveness and Avoidance in one (in most cases) to three sessions without the victim being required to disclose details of the traumatic event. Being trauma-focused, the protocol aims to prevent the patient's involuntary recall (internal and external triggers) thus decreasing feelings of fear and anxiety yet retaining voluntary recall. Method: Participants (N = 15; Mage = 36.13; 100% female) were recruited at a local anti-violence center. The study has a longitudinal design with four sections. In addition to the treatment section, three assessment sections have been devoted to detecting PTSD symptoms through the PTSD Checklist for DSM-5 (PCL-5) and the Impact Event Scale (IES). The participants’ symptoms have been assessed before and two times after treatment (two weeks and three months after). Results: The data collected revealed that, irrespective of time from the traumatic event, thirteen (86.67%) of the fifteen women involved in the study had clinically significant reductions in PTSD symptoms two weeks after the treatment as it was equal to or greater than 7 points (i.e., clinically significant change). In addition, the comparison between PCL-5 scores pre- and three months after the treatment showed that, on average, at the last assessment, the score was significantly lower (z = -3.408; p.001) and that 60% of the participants reported no diagnosis of PTSD. Conclusion: Our results suggest that Rewind Technique is a particularly suitable technique to be used in contexts such as anti-violence centers, thanks to its features being fast, effective long term, and easy to impart. Despite limitations (i.e., low number of subjects involved, no use of a control group, only one psychologist treated all the participants), we hope that these encouraging results will prompt therapists and researchers to collect further evidence.

Keywords

• rewind technique
• ptsd
• anti-violence centers
• clinical psychology.