Each month our editorial team sifts through hundreds of papers and curates notable findings—for practitioners and informed readers who want to stay current with the evidence. Subscribe to the monthly Research Digest for expert analysis and concise summaries of key papers.
Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a chronic, often debilitating mental health disorder that may develop after a traumatic life event. Fortunately, effective psychological treatments for PTSD exist. In 2017, the Veterans Health Administration and Department of Defense (VA/DoD) and the American Psychological Association (APA) each published treatment guidelines for PTSD,…
This article explains that a brain network called the default mode network (DMN) supports self-related thoughts and autobiographical memory and helps form a stable sense of self. In people with PTSD, the DMN shows substantially reduced connectivity at rest compared with healthy people, and bigger reductions are linked with worse…
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a serious and varied mental illness that can follow exposure to a traumatic event. Diagnosis in current systems (DSM-5 and ICD-11) requires that a person experienced a traumatic event. Typical symptoms are reliving fearful memories, a lasting sense of threat, active avoidance, being overly alert…
This article says simple daily routines help people feel safer and less anxious by making life more predictable. It reviews research and examples showing that steady schedules (at work, at home, or in families) can protect mental health, while unpredictable schedules or long stretches without structure are linked with worse…
This mini-review describes how large or severe traumatic events can change the brain and affect thinking, emotions, and behavior. It says areas such as the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex show physiological changes after trauma, which are linked to problems with memory, attention, and emotional control. The paper also highlights…
This study pooled data from 19 observational studies with 17,746 adolescents and young adults (ages 10–25) to measure how resilience and mental health are related. The authors found that higher resilience was linked to fewer negative mental-health signs (correlation r = -0.391) and to stronger positive mental-health outcomes (r =…
This study asked 16 experienced international trauma experts about the final ‘‘reintegration’’ phase in treatment for complex PTSD. Experts disagreed about the exact definition and which activities reintegration should include. They did agree, however, on important principles for how reintegration should be delivered. The authors say these findings help build…
Growing up with ADHD was associated with both challenges and positives, but the main resilience theme was that life gets better. A variety of resilience factors contributed to this, but relational and environmental factors seemed particularly important. Acceptance, both from society and self-acceptance, were related to all resilience factors in…
