Treatment strategy provides mental health benefits to war trauma survivors
Testimony therapy included individual counselling, whereby the clients told their life stories, including traumatic events, and counselors provided support and documented the details of the narratives. After sessions, the counselors transcribed the narratives, which were compiled into books for the clients. Next, a culturally adapted ceremony involved a Buddhist ritual and a truth-telling event to which community members and non-governmental organization representatives were invited. "We found that testimony therapy was effective at reducing the symptoms of anxiety, depression, and PTSD among Khmer Rouge survivors. This is especially notable because the intervention was brief (five days), culturally adapted (and adaptable), and was conducted in a low resource context," said Dr. Jennifer Esala, co-author of the Journal of Traumatic Stress study. "We hope that these findings encourage researchers to continue to study testimony therapy more closely and for practitione...