Imagery Rehearsal Therapy for Posttraumatic Nightmares: Symptom Severity and Control Appraisal Outcomes

This research included a small-scale randomized, controlled trial of IRT (Imagery Rehearsal Therapy) with a sample of military veterans receiving treatment for PTSD from the VAMC in Huntington, WV. Domains assessed included nightmare severity, posttraumatic cognition, general sleep quality, and PTSD symptom severity. The intended purposes were to evaluate the relative contribution of the imagery rehearsal and rescripting component of IRT intervention in isolation from the sleep hygiene component, to assess fluctuations in symptoms across time, and to assess any relative contribution of control appraisals in outcomes. Due to an unexpectedly small sample size, no definitive conclusions can be drawn from the results. However, general trends in participants’ symptom fluctuations across time are described, as well as considerations for factors that likely influenced these outcomes.