Prolonged Exposure Therapy

歌曲 Prolonged Exposure Therapy
歌手 英语听力
专辑 VOA慢速英语:健康报道

歌词

[00:00.00] From VOA Learning English,
[00:02.57] this is the Health Report.
[00:04.92] Mental health experts often use a treatment
[00:09.19] called "prolonged exposure therapy"
[00:12.35] to help soldiers returning from battle,
[00:15.45] it is considered the first step in treating soldiers
[00:19.60] who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder(PTSD).
[00:23.36] Now, researchers have found the treatment
[00:26.62] can also help adolescent girls
[00:29.33] who were sexually abused as children.
[00:32.53] In prolonged exposure therapy - or PET
[00:37.49] - patients are asked to remember
[00:39.99] and then talk about the feelings
[00:43.29] and thoughts that cause them to suffer.
[00:46.45] They do this until these memories are no longer painful.
[00:51.60] The desensitizing method can provide help to soldiers
[00:56.74] who developed emotional problems
[00:59.24] because of a wartime experiences.
[01:01.79] Post-traumatic stress disorder
[01:04.73] is not limited to military veterans.
[01:07.80] It is also seen in young women
[01:10.76] who were sexually abused or raped
[01:13.93] when they were children.
[01:15.93] Edna Foa is a clinical psychologist
[01:19.29] at the University of Pennsylvania,
[01:21.94] she helped to develop prolonged exposure therapy for PTSD.
[01:27.85] She says young women who were abused at an earlier age
[01:32.68] often get what she calls supportive counseling,
[01:37.14] but she says that kind of treatment usually helps them
[01:41.44] for only a short period of time.
[01:44.60] "It kind of reduces the pain in the short run;
[01:49.05] but in the long run,
[01:50.41] it actually maintains the symptoms and actually generates
[01:57.32] chronic post-traumatic stress disorder," said Foa.
[02:00.33] Doctor Foa says teenages who receive supportive counseling
[02:04.98] may avoid situations that bring back memories of their abuse.
[02:10.18] She believes PET can offer the abused girls a cure that lasts longer.
[02:17.24] She says it gives them the skills they need
[02:20.63] to face the memories of their abuse.
[02:24.03] Doctor Foa and her team are mended the PET program
[02:29.28] to meet the emotional maturity level of young people,
[02:33.69] then they compared it to supportive counseling
[02:37.75] in a group of sixty sexually abused girls.
[02:41.40] All the girls suffered from PTSD and was 13 to 18 years of age.
[02:48.87] Each girl got 14 sessions of either PET or supportive counseling.
[02:56.02] Each meeting lasted about 60 to 90 minutes.
[03:00.77] Doctor Foa says, during treatment,
[03:03.99] those who received PET had a larger decrease
[03:09.15] in PTSD symptoms and depression, compared to the other girls.
[03:14.51] They also had a greater improvement in the quality of life.
[03:18.84] "Most of the girls who received prolonged exposure
[03:24.74] actually lost the diagnosis of PTSD
[03:28.85] and really did very well even a year after,
[03:32.75] because we followed them for up to a year
[03:35.51] after the treatment," said Foa.
[03:37.11] Doc Foa says social workers in community mental health centers
[03:42.42] can be trained in prolonged exposure therapy in just four days.
[03:48.43] And that's the VOA Learning English Health Report.
[03:52.83] I'm Christopher Cruise.