PTSD and Culture the Arq Methods for Stepped Care after Trauma among Ethnic Minority Groups in the Netherlands

Trauma focused CBT and EMDR are evidence based treatments of choice for treating PTSD (Bisson, 2009; NICE, 2005), however the external validity of RCT’s is low as ethnic minority patients concern less than 1 percent in efficacy trials. The question is thus whether evidence based interventions are applicable and effective among affected migrants and refugees. Literature suggests that none of the regular interventions are ‘solid evidence based’ but CBT and NET seem to be convincibly applicable (Crumlish & O’Rourke, 2010; CBT Hinton et al., 2004; 2005; Otto et al., 2003; NET Neuner et al., 2004); the intercultural efficacy of EMDR is yet to be established. In this presentation intercultural competencies (key notions are knowledge, attitude and skills) as well as specific culture sensitive interventions (e.g., psycho-education, relaxation techniques, a contextual and systemic perspective, explicit attention to practical, societal and physical factors, affect tolerance and ‘empowerment’) will be discussed.