Brief summary
Research conducted by Dr Sarah Mills
University of Wolverhampton 2011
Dr Sarah Mills, as part of her PhD dissertation, in conjunction with the University of Wolverhampton conducted a study to ascertain the impact of Spectrum Emotional Coaching / TherapyTM on subjects with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The study title was “PTSD – in war veterans: moving away from exposure based treatments.” The purpose of the study was to assess the effectiveness of Spectrum Emotional Coaching / TherapyTM in reducing the symptoms of PTSD and other known associated disorders such as anxiety, depression and the related construct of avoidance. All clients were asked to fill in four questionnaires at the start of therapy, and again at the end of their therapy. These were the Acceptance and Action Questionnaire (AAQ2), the Beck Depression Inventory Scale (BDI), the Beck Anxiety Inventory Scale (BAI) and the Impact of Events Scale (IES-R).
● The AAQ2, designed by Bond (2005) measures a client’s acceptance of current life situation and subjective experience of control over their own situation – i.e. psychological flexibility and avoidance.
● The IES-R, Horowicz et al (1997), assesses subjective distress caused by traumatic events. It is not used as a diagnostic tool for PTSD however cut-off scores for a preliminary diagnosis have been cited in the literature.
● The BDI, Beck (1996) is a questionnaire designed to measure the severity and depth of depression in clients. The questions are centre around the common symptoms experienced by people suffering with depression.
● The BAI, again Beck (1996), was designed to measure anxiety in clients. The questions are centred around the common symptoms experienced by people suffering with anxiety. In total there were 82 participants, 6 of whom were excluded from the data analysis due to missing pre or post- Spectrum measures.
Of the 76 remaining, all bar one had engaged in active service. Their ages ranged from 21 yoa to 61 yoa (3 ages missing) and 10 were women (again, 3 sets of demographic data were missing). 20-29 yoa: n=27 (of which 3 were women) 30-39 yoa: n=30 (of which 5 were women) 40-49 yoa: n=9 (of which 1 was a woman) 50-59 yoa: n=5 (of which 1 was a woman) 60-61 yoa: n=2 In the case of the AAQ2, all measures following receiving Spectrum Therapy were significantly statistically significantly different that those measured pre-Spectrum to a far more significantly different scale than p<0.01 (Students T-test, two tailed).
The results show significantly less avoidance, and far greater subjective levels of control with all the participants. Population norms for people without psychological distress (Bond et al 2011, Behaviour Therapy 42 (2011) 676-688, are below a total score of 18.51.
The Beck Depression Inventory Scale also shows significant differences in depression responses following Spectrum Therapy and Emotional CoachingTM.
All parameters show statistical significance in reduction of symptoms of p<0.01. It is clear that symptoms of depression are significantly impacted positively by Spectrum TherapyTM, bringing levels of subjective experience to normal population values.
The Beck Anxiety Inventory Score also shows strongly statistically significant impacts of receiving Spectrum TherapyTM of p<0.01. Again the clients subjective assessment of their anxiety symptoms reduced to population norms compared with people who do not suffer with anxiety.
Finally, Impact of Events Score also shows statistically significant differences before and after having received Spectrum Therapy and Emotional CoachingTM. Again, it is clear that subjective, self reported levels of distress have significantly reduced (p<0.01) once a client had received Spectrum.
