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…