AUTHOR=Vaage-Kowalzik Veronica , Engeset Jeanette , Jakobsen Marianne , Andreassen Wenche , Evensen Julie Horgen 

TITLE=Exhausting, but necessary: the lived experience of participants in an intensive inpatient trauma treatment program

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychology

VOLUME=Volume 15 - 2024

YEAR=2024

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1341716

DOI=10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1341716

ISSN=1664-1078

ABSTRACT=Background: Intensive inpatient treatment programs have shown robust results in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). How patients experience this treatment program and what changes they experience as a result of treatment, have however only scarcely been explored through qualitative studies. Objective: This study aimed to explore the lived experience of participants in an intensive inpatient trauma treatment program. Our research questions were: How do patients experience intensive trauma-focused treatment? And; How do they experience possible change related to participating in the treatment program? Methods: Six patients diagnosed with PTSD with significant comorbidity, who recently had participated in an intensive two-week (4+4 days) inpatient trauma treatment program with Prolonged Exposure (PE), Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), and therapist rotation (TR) were interviewed with a semi-structured qualitative interview.Transcripts were analyzed using a thematic analysis approach.Results: Our analysis resulted in five main themes: 1) The need to feel safe 2) The benefit of many and different therapeutic encounters 3) Variable experience with elements of treatment 4) Intensity 5) Experienced change. Our results suggest that feeling safe within the framework of the treatment program facilitated the treatment process. Many and different therapeutic encounters, both through TR and with ward staff, were described as contributing to experienced change. All participants described the intensity as facilitative to trauma processing. Most did, however, also describe often feeling too overwhelmed to benefit from all elements of the treatment program.Our findings suggest that participants experience the overall treatment program as beneficial and contributing to experienced change. Participants described the intensity of the program as exhausting, but necessary. Most did, however, report at times being too overwhelmed to benefit from elements of the program. Consequently, our results prompt us to question what the optimal level of intensity should be.