Mothers Overcoming and Managing Stress

"Trauma Affect Regulation: Guide for Education and Therapy (TARGET; Ford \& Russo, 2006) is a manualized gender-specific treatment for PTSD. TARGET teaches a practical 7-step sequence of skills for processing and managing trauma-related reactions to current stressful experiences, summarized by a mnemonic (FREEDOM), e.g., Focusing (F), Recognizing current triggers. TARGET also involves creative arts activities, i.e., personalized lifelines via collage, drawing, poetry, and writing that may include traumatic experiences but emphasize life story narrative reconstruction with no exposure therapy."

"Present Centered Therapy (PCT) is a 12-session supportive therapy adapted a 14-session version co-developed by the first author (McDonagh-Coyle et al., 2005). Psychoeducation is provided about the link between traumatic events, PTSD symptoms, and problems in relationships, and social problem solving skills are taught to address the traumagenic dynamics of betrayal, stigma, powerlessness, and sexualization (Finkelhor, 1987). PCT focuses on addressing current problems rather than trauma memory-based exposure therapy, and uses a distinctive mnemonic to organize the skill set. PCT has clients keep a journal of relational stressors and responses as between-session homework."

After a 90 day wait-list period, participants were invited to choose one of the treatment approaches (PCT or TARGET) and engage in 12 sessions of therapy.