Imagery vividness and perceived anxious arousal in prolonged exposure treatment for PTSD

Rauch and colleaguesNovember 2004

Abstract
What This Study Is About
How They Studied It
What They Found
What This Might Mean
One Interesting Detail
Authors
Cite this paper

Abstract

The present paper examines imagery vividness and anxiety during Prolonged Exposure (PE) for chronic PTSD among 69 female survivors of sexual or nonsexual assault. All participants received between 9 and 12 individual sessions of either PE alone or in combination with cognitive restructuring. As hypothesized, vividness and anxiety ratings from early imaginal exposure sessions were moderately to highly correlated, but these correlations decreased in later sessions. Both subjective distress and vividness decreased significantly with exposure. Greater reductions in subjective distress between the first and last exposure session were related to better outcome. However, contrary to hypothesis, vividness was not related to outcome. Theoretical implications of the results are discussed.

Our summary in plain words

What This Study Is About

Prolonged exposure is a therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In one of its main parts, imaginal exposure, people repeatedly relive a traumatic memory in their imagination while describing it. This study looked at how vivid those imagined memories were, how much distress they caused, and whether either was linked to how much patients improved.

How They Studied It

69 women with chronic PTSD after sexual or nonsexual assault took part.

They were randomly assigned to 9 sessions of prolonged exposure alone (36 women) or combined with cognitive restructuring (33 women), a technique for challenging unhelpful thoughts. Those who had not improved enough by session 8 received 3 extra sessions.

During each imaginal exposure session, they rated their distress every 5 minutes and the vividness of the image every 10 minutes, each from 0 to 100. The researchers used the peak ratings from the first six imaginal exposure sessions.

Evaluators who did not know the treatment assignment rated PTSD symptoms before and after treatment.

What They Found

In the first sessions, more vivid images went with more distress (correlations of .43 to .60 in sessions 1 to 3, where 0 means no link and 1 a perfect one). This link weakened later. Peak distress fell steeply, from an average of 88.8 to 55.1 between the first and sixth sessions. Vividness also fell reliably, but only slightly, from 88.5 to 78.5, and stayed high. Women whose distress dropped more improved more in their PTSD symptoms. Changes in vividness were not related to improvement. The two treatments did not differ in these patterns.

What This Might Mean

The authors suggest that therapy builds a new version of the memory that can be pictured clearly without the same fear. They offer two possible reasons vividness did not predict outcome: people with PTSD may have unusually vivid trauma images, which left little range to compare, or a certain level of vividness may be enough. They note that the vividness and distress ratings were self-reports and that the results need replication. The study did not look at aphantasia (the inability to picture things in the mind).

One Interesting Detail

Vividness stayed high for most women: only 12 of the 69 gave a peak vividness rating below 50 in any imagery session.

This summary was written with AI and may contain errors. Check the original paper.

Authors

Sheila A. M. Rauch
1 paper in the library
Edna B. Foa
1 paper in the library
Jami M. Furr
1 paper in the library
Jennifer C. Filip
1 paper in the library

Cite this paper

Rauch, S. A. M., Foa, E. B., Furr, J. M., & Filip, J. C. (2004). Imagery vividness and perceived anxious arousal in prolonged exposure treatment for PTSD. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 17(6), 461–465. doi:10.1007/s10960-004-5794-8

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Research Journal of Traumatic Stress

Imagery vividness and perceived anxious arousal in prolonged exposure treatment for PTSD

Rauch and colleaguesNovember 2004

Read the paper

Abstract
What This Study Is About
How They Studied It
What They Found
What This Might Mean
One Interesting Detail
Authors
Cite this paper

Abstract

Our summary in plain words

What This Study Is About

How They Studied It

69 women with chronic PTSD after sexual or nonsexual assault took part.

They were randomly assigned to 9 sessions of prolonged exposure alone (36 women) or combined with cognitive restructuring (33 women), a technique for challenging unhelpful thoughts. Those who had not improved enough by session 8 received 3 extra sessions.

During each imaginal exposure session, they rated their distress every 5 minutes and the vividness of the image every 10 minutes, each from 0 to 100. The researchers used the peak ratings from the first six imaginal exposure sessions.

Evaluators who did not know the treatment assignment rated PTSD symptoms before and after treatment.

What They Found

What This Might Mean

One Interesting Detail

Vividness stayed high for most women: only 12 of the 69 gave a peak vividness rating below 50 in any imagery session.

This summary was written with AI and may contain errors. Check the original paper.

Authors

Sheila A. M. Rauch
1 paper in the library
Edna B. Foa
1 paper in the library
Jami M. Furr
1 paper in the library
Jennifer C. Filip
1 paper in the library

Cite this paper

Topics

Mental Health

Most-cited researchers

Recruit participants for your study

We can help you reach people across the imagery spectrum, from aphantasia to hyperphantasia.

Partner with us

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