Treating life-impairing problems beyond PTSD: Reply to Cahill, Zoellner, Feeny, and Riggs (2004)

This reply to the comment by Cahill, Riggs, Zoellner, and Feeny (2004) on the article by Cloitre. Koenen, Cohen. and Han (2002) reiterates that an important goal of treatment research among chronically traumatized populations is to address problems that impair life functioning, including not only posttraumatic stress disorder but also emotion regulation difficulties and interpersonal problems. The need for further research on symptom exacerbation and drop-out rates in exposure-based treatment for child abuse survivors is discussed. An ongoing follow-up study is described, which is designed to assess the relative utility of STAIR and modified PE individually versus their combination in meeting "good outcome" standards as defined above.