Can anyone tell me whether there have been any well-conducted outcome studies that show whether counselling actually helps people who have been through ‘traumatic’ experiences? If so, have there been any differential outcome studies that throw any light on what counsel cousellors do best to give?
That is: has the effectiveness of counselling for ‘psychological trauma’ undergone any clinical testing? Have different forms of counselling been tested against one another? What were the results?
I’m not familiar with the full range of studies but the U.S. papers ran an article in early September about the findings of two recent studies that found that “Counseling sessions frequently given to survivors immediately after disasters, such as the debriefings given to people traumatized by the Sept. 11 attacks, do nothing to prevent psychiatric disorders and may even be harmful…”
A couple of interesting quotes from the article: “‘If this was a drug, we would take it off the market,’ said Richard Gist, a psychologist at the University of Missouri in Kansas City. Referring to the widespread popularity of debriefing, he added, ‘What we have here is something between a social movement, a pyramid scheme and a cult.’” and “Farris Tuma, chief of the NIMH’s traumatic stress research program, said the experts concluded ‘it’s probably inappropriate to recommend blanket or universal emotional recall of events because of the likelihood of creating additional distress among people who may be coping just fine.’”
If you really want to find out a lot about the topic, one starting place would be the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health. Their PSTD site is: http://www.nimh.nih.gov/publicat/reliving.cfm
Critical Incident Debriefing is only one form of counseling. A search on PsychInfo or Medline should provide numerous studies on counseling efficacy in PTSD.