Foundations of Prolonged Exposure
This chapter presents the foundations for prolonged exposure (PE) therapy as they have been developed in emotional processing theory to immerse the provider in theory that will guide all decisions during PE, whether they are using the intensive outpatient program (PE-IOP) in this manual or another model (e.g., PE-Primary Care, or standard PE). The authors present a discussion on how PE works and on the research supporting the theorized mechanisms of change. In addition, alternative treatments are described, including medication and considerations for patients who are already on medications when they are engaged in PE-IOP. The chapter ends with a discussion of why this PE-IOP model was developed and when it may be indicated for patient care.