Prevention of Traumatic Stress Disorders

Prevention of problems almost always is preferable to treatment after problems already have become entrenched: as the common sense saying goes, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. This is very true in relation to posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), especially in light of the extremely debilitating and costly impact that chronic PTSD has not only for the individual victim but for their family, peer group, school or workplace and society. Prevention requires innovative adaptations of the approaches to treatment that have been developed for PTSD, because dealing with the impact of exposure to traumatic stressors before PTSD has developed involves several new challenges over and above those posed by the treatment of chronic PTSD. This chapter describes the theoretical foundations and principles that guide PTSD prevention specialists and the relatively recently developed set of PTSD prevention intervention in detail. It summarizes the scientific research evidence for PTSD prevention.