However, several meta-analyses find that psychological debriefing is unhelpful and is potentially harmful. This is true for both single-session debriefing and multiple session interventions. As of 2017 the American Psychological Association assessed psychological debriefing as No Research Support/Treatment is Potentially Harmful. Risk-targeted interventions
Risk-targeted interventions are those that attempt to mitigate specific formative information or events. It can target modeling normal behaviors, instruction on a task, or giving information on the event. Management
Reviews of studies have found that combination therapy (psychological and pharmacotherapy) is no more effective than psychological therapy alone. Counselling
The approaches with the strongest evidence include behavioral and cognitive-behavioral therapies such as prolonged exposure therapy, cognitive processing therapy, and eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR). There is some evidence for brief eclectic psychotherapy (BEP), narrative exposure therapy (NET), and written exposure therapy.A 2019 Cochrane review evaluated couples and family therapies compared to no care and individual and group therapies for the treatment of PTSD. There were too few studies on couples therapies to determine if substantive benefits were derived but preliminary RCTs suggested that couples therapies may be beneficial for reducing PTSD symptoms.A meta-analytic comparison of EMDR and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) found both protocols indistinguishable in terms of effectiveness in treating PTSD; however, "the contribution of the eye movement component in EMDR to treatment outcome" is unclear. A meta-analysis in children and adolescents also found that EMDR was as efficacious as CBT.Children with PTSD are far more likely to pursue treatment at school (because of its proximity and ease) than at a free clinic.
In comparison with other animal studies, examination of neuroendocrine and neuroimmune responses in plasma revealed a trend toward increase in corticosterone in PTSD and combination groups. Stellate ganglion block is an experimental procedure for the treatment of PTSD.Researchers are investigating a number of experimental FAAH and MAGL-inhibiting drugs of hopes of finding a better treatment for anxiety and stress-related illnesses. In 2016, the FAAH-inhibitor drug BIA 10-2474 was withdrawn from human trials in France due to adverse effects.Preliminary evidence suggests that MDMA-assisted psychotherapy might be an effective treatment for PTSD. However, it is important to note that the results in clinical trials of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy might be substantially influenced by expectancy effects given the unblinding of participants. Furthermore, there is a conspicuous lack of trials comparing MDMA-assisted psychotherapy to existent first-line treatments for PTSD, such as trauma-focused psychological treatments, which seems to achieve similar or even better outcomes than MDMA-assisted psychotherapy. Psychotherapy
Trauma-focused psychotherapies for PTSD (also known as "exposure-based" or "exposure" psychotherapies), such as prolonged exposure therapy (PE), eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR), and cognitive-reprocessing therapy (CPT) have the most evidence for efficacy and are recommended as first-line treatment for PTSD by almost all clinical practice guidelines. Exposure-based psychotherapies demonstrate efficacy for PTSD caused by different trauma "types", such as combat, sexual-assault, or natural disasters.