Manage Emotions to Reduce Aggression - MERA: A Brief Aggression Treatment for Veterans With PTSD Symptoms
VA Office of Research and Development
Summary
PTSD is one of the most prevalent mental health conditions affecting Veterans who have served since 9/11. Veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) report difficulty controlling impulsive aggression (IA). An inability to manage one's emotions (emotion dysregulation) is an underlying mechanism of IA. Reducing IA and increasing use of PTSD evidence-based psychotherapies are two critical missions for the Veterans Health Administration. The proposed research supports these missions by comparing a 3- session emotion regulation treatment (Manage Emotions to Reduce Aggression) to a control group in order to determine if MERA can reduce IA and prepare Veterans for PTSD treatment. By enhancing Veterans' abilities to cope with trauma-related emotions and feel equipped to initiate PTSD treatments, this research aims to help Veterans decrease IA and ultimately recover from PTSD.
Description
Aggression can have devastating interpersonal and societal consequences, including incarceration, family violence, disruption of treatment-facilitating factors, and death. About 50% of Veterans with full and subthreshold posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) reported engaging in aggression after returning from deployment. This level of aggression is higher than Veterans without PTSD5 and civilians with PTSD. Current psychotherapy options to reduce aggression include present centered therapies (PCTs), anger management, and evidence based psychotherapies (EBP) for PTSD. Anger management reduces a…
Eligibility
- Age range
- 18–64 years
- Sex
- All
- Healthy volunteers
- No
Inclusion Criteria: 1. Male and female Veterans who deployed to combat zones since 9/11. 2. Currently meets criteria for full or subthreshold PTSD, determined by the Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale for DSM-5 3. Engaged in at least 3 self-reported aggressive acts (e.g., yelling, throwing objects, hitting objects/people) in the last month, measured by the Overt Aggression Scale 4. Impulsive aggression is his/her primary form of aggression, determined by the Impulsive Premeditated Aggression Scale 5. Each Veteran must allow an independent aggression rater (live-in partner, family member, or ro…
Interventions
- BehavioralManage Emotions to Reduce Aggression
MERA begins with education about the adaptive nature of emotions, how childhood and military experiences can influence emotion regulation, and how combat requires different emotion regulation strategies than most civilian environments. MERA use modeling and practice with feedback to teach cognitive-behavioral and acceptance-based emotion regulation skills.
- BehavioralPresent Centered Psychotherapy
PCT will serve as the comparison group. PCT assists Veterans in understanding and coping with current difficulties, such as aggression, but does not provide systematic training in emotion regulation skills.
Locations (2)
- James A. Haley Veterans' Hospital, Tampa, FLTampa, Florida
- Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center, Houston, TXHouston, Texas