Group psychotherapy's impact on trust in veterans with PTSD: A pilot study

Interpersonal trust is fundamental for the recovery of trauma survivors and the effectiveness of group psychotherapy. Yet there is limited research on the relationship between interpersonal trust and group psychotherapy. Twenty-one male Vietnam combat veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (6 in a long-term process group [LTP], 10 in a short-term cognitive processing therapy group [CPT], and 5 treatment-as-usual controls) were evaluated before and after group psychotherapy using the Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Checklist–Military Version (PCL-M) and an in-vivo measure of interpersonal trust, the Iterated Trust Game. Three (14.3%) of the veterans were African American, 9 were Caucasian (42.9%), and 9 were Hispanic (42.9%); they averaged 61.9 years of age (SD = 1.8 years). Change in PCL-M scores differed by group (controls: −1.0 ± 3.7; CPT: −15.5 ± 6.8; LTP: −1.3 ± 12.2; p = .003). CPT group subjects improved more than controls (p < .001) and trended toward more improvement than the LTP group (...