A Randomized Controlled Trial of Metacognitive Therapy and EMDR for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a frequently occurring and often debilitating anxiety disorder resulting from exposure to trauma. Trauma-focused cognitive-behavioural therapies, such as Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR), are generally considered to be evidence-based treatments for PTSD. Although a majority of patients achieve improvement, a substantial minority either drop out of treatment, present with residual symptoms following treatment or fail to make any improvement. Furthermore, a substantial portion of the clinical trials on PTSD is characterised by major methodological limitations. In addition, there's a pressing need for research on mediators of treatment outcome. Taken together, these results highlight the need for methodological rigorous and stringent clinical trials comparing treatment modalities for PTSD. The first aim of this study is to investigate whether a treatment not based on the principles of exposure, i.e. metacognitive therapy (MCT) is as efficient as exposure-based treatments. The second aim to elucidate potential mediators of treatments effects by incorporating process-related variables.