Intensive Child Therapy to Prevent Further Abuse Victimization: A Case Study

Quasi-Qualitative Evaluation of Progressive Counting in Secure Accommodation in Scotland: an Exploratory Cluster Case Study

“…By introducing PC to a secure facility in Scotland, the current cluster case study builds on the findings of previous exploratory youth, and adult PC studies (Greenwald et al 2015 ; Jarecki and Greenwald 2015 ; Greenwald 2014 ). Three youth, all with complex trauma histories, reported benefiting from PC within a trauma-informed phase model.…”

“…Longer sessions also enable youth to get all the way through processing a given memory (or memories) rather than leaving one activated, but not completed. Intensive approaches to therapy then, require further exploration (Greenwald 2014 ). For the therapist and facility, the main challenge was to address a paradigm shift from a behavior risk model to a trauma-informed understanding.…”

“…In brief, PC involves the client imagining "a ‘movie’ of the entire story of the trauma memory from beginning to end, while the therapist counts out loud from 1 to 10, the next time to 20, the next time to 30, etc., until no further memory-associated distress remains. As is standard across trauma resolution methods, all the memories and memory details are generated by the client” (Greenwald 2014 , p. 329). A minor upsetting memory is used as a test run first.…”

“…PC has been found to be about as effective as EMDR (Greenwald et al 2013 ; Greenwald et al 2015 ) and less emotionally dysregulating for reactive youth (Greenwald et al 2015 ). Recent case studies with youth have found that two-day intensive PC reduced a traumatized female’s distress sufficiently to disclose abuse and receive child protective services (Greenwald 2014 ). In a cluster case study, an 11 year old girl who experienced family bereavement and repeated molestation, and a twelve year old girl who experienced loss and a physical injury, both reported reduced posttraumatic stress symptoms to non-clinical levels.…”