Cognitive Processing Therapy for PTSD in a Survivor of the World Trade Center Bombing

Abstract The present case study describes the successful treatment, including long-term follow-up of a survivor of the first World Trade Center (WTC) bombing who developed posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The literature indicates that behavioral, particularly exposure based techniques, and cognitive applications have shown promising results in reducing symptoms of PTSD, in adults exposed to combat and rape. To our knowledge, no treatment protocol has been developed for PTSD following a terrorist incident. This paper presented the application of a PTSD treatment protocol based on Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) (Resick & Schnicke, 1992, 1993) in the treatment of an adult female exposed to such terrorist trauma.