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Our Next Lecture

What's the Buzz?: New Developments in Prolonged Exposure

Sheila A. M. Rauch, PhD, ABPP

Wednesday, August 16 at 2:00pm ET 

image by Brett Sayles

About the Presenter

Sheila A.M. Rauch, PhD, ABPP co-led design and now serves as Deputy Director of the Emory Healthcare Veterans Program and is Director of Mental Health Research and Program Evaluation at the Joseph Maxwell Cleland Atlanta VA Medical Center. With the goal to improve access to effective mental health care, Dr. Rauch has been developing programs, conducting research and providing PTSD and Anxiety Disorders treatment for over 20 years. Her research focuses on examination of mechanisms involved in the development and treatment of PTSD and improving access to effective interventions. She has led several PTSD treatment outcome and mechanisms trials including pharmaceutical and therapy trials, including moving interventions for PTSD into medical and primary care settings. She has published over 220 peer-reviewed scholarly articles as well as many chapters and books on anxiety disorders and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) focusing on neurobiology and factors involved in the development, maintenance, and treatment of anxiety disorders, psychosocial factors in medical settings, and the relation between physical health and anxiety. She was awarded membership in the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology and serves as a member of the Board of Directors and Scientific Council of the Anxiety and Depression Association of America.

About the Topic

Prolonged Exposure Therapy (PE) is a well-researched and highly effective treatment for PTSD across trauma populations. PE has 25 years of research showing its effectiveness. In addition, the past 15 years have seen an explosion of clinically relevant research on PTSD treatment and PE. This presentation will provide an update on some of the recent groundbreaking research on PE to highlight its powerful efficacy with complex patients with PTSD in clinical practice.

PE Resources on Our Website

Whiteboard video plain language animated description of PE (~3 minutes)

AboutFace PE page Veterans talk about how PE turned their lives around (multiple videos)

Patient handout from the PTSD Treatment Decision Aid (PDF; 2 pages)

Prolonged Exposure (PE) webpage summary (also available in Spanish)

Mobile App: PE Coach (treatment-companion app)

Prolonged Exposure: Helping During Treatment for loved ones of those in PE treatment

Prolonged Exposure Therapy: Effective Treatment for PTSD (1-hour online course with free continuing education credit)

Job Opportunity

The National Center for PTSD (NCPTSD) will soon be recruiting for an Associate Director (AD) for Diversity on a full-time, permanent basis. This is a remote position. As a key member of the NCPTSD Leadership team, the AD for Diversity supports the NCPTSD’s diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts in the domains of research, education and training, and workplace culture. The AD for Diversity brings a health equity focus and expertise to the research and education arms of NCPTSD, and optimizes Center activities in these areas through consultation, coordination, and program development. In collaboration with other members of Center leadership, the AD for Diversity works with NCPTSD leadership to develop a vision and strategy at NCPTSD to advance diversity, equity and inclusion pertaining to race, ethnicity, gender, Veteran status, LGBTQ+ identity, disability, socioeconomic status and other marginalized identities.

If interested, please contact Michael Romp at michael.romp@va.gov and you will be notified when the job is officially posted.  If you are not familiar with the federal job application process, you can learn more on the VA Careers website.

Featured Article

Prolonged Exposure for PTSD

Prolonged Exposure (PE) is one of the most studied treatments for PTSD. Based on the large number of studies showing it is effective for use across diverse patient presentations, PE has the strongest recommendation as a treatment for PTSD in every clinical practice guideline. PE is a trauma-focused psychotherapy that works to treat PTSD in patients with complicated presentations, including those with comorbidities such as substance use disorder.

Read the full article

Free Resources

2023 Clinical Practice Guideline for PTSD

The VA/DoD 2023 Clinical Practice Guideline (CPG) for the Management of PTSD is now available.

The major recommendations in the CPG cover:

• Diagnosis and assessment of PTSD
• Prevention of PTSD
• Treatment of PTSD
• Treatment of PTSD with co-occurring conditions

Follow the link above to download the guideline materials and see a list of related webinars.

Looking for clarification about anything in the guideline or unsure of the clinical implications? Any provider who treats Veterans can ask a question: PTSDconsult@va.gov. 

PTSD Awareness in Health Care Settings

This 15-minute video for medical center staff shows how patients' PTSD symptoms may come into play in health care settings. Presenting the experiences of three Veterans in a busy VA hospital, the video can help employees - especially non-clinical staff - better understand and respond to behavior that may be related to PTSD.

Available on our provider videos page

A facilitator's guide is also available

Are you treating U.S. Veterans?

Our team of expert clinicians is available to consult with any healthcare provider treating U.S. veterans in any setting.   We can discuss assessment, diagnosis, psychotherapy, medications, collaborating with VA care, patient and family education, continuing education, and just about anything else related to veterans and PTSD.  No question is too big or too small. Contact us at PTSDconsult@va.gov or 866-948-7880.