Mindfulness Based Interventions: Treatment and Prevention of Combat-Related Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

There exists an expectation within the field of mental health in which prevention and intervention methods be developed, evaluated, and ideally integrated in a way that strives to achieve comprehensive and effective prevention or treatment. This need is particularly important for trauma exposed populations, such as military/combat communities, that are at high risk for developing Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Although frontline interventions such as Cognitive Processing Therapy and Prolonged Exposure have shown to be effective and have been widely disseminated throughout the Veterans Administration, there remain treatment resistant subpopulations of military personnel and veterans who do not benefit from these treatments. Also, it is apparent that many soldiers are currently being deployed with insufficient mental resources, training, and resiliency skills needed to buffer chronic, maladaptive psychological responses to trauma/combat exposure.;Therefore, the primary goals of this project are to explore the existing literature on PTSD vulnerability, development, and maintenance in order to provide further insight into prevention and treatment strategies; review the current literature on the evidenced based practices for PTSD; and explore more recent, and preliminary research on mindfulness based interventions that (1) are believed to enhance current evidenced based practices, (2) have shown to be effective in treating resistant cases of PTSD, and (3) demonstrate implications for prevention. The implications and limitations of the project and recommendations for future research are also discussed.