[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.