Imagery vividness and perceived anxious arousal in prolonged exposure treatment for PTSD

The present paper examines imagery vividness and anxiety during Prolonged Exposure (PE) for chronic PTSD among 69 female survivors of sexual or nonsexual assault. All participants received between 9 and 12 individual sessions of either PE alone or in combination with cognitive restructuring. As hypothesized, vividness and anxiety ratings from early imaginal exposure sessions were moderately to highly correlated, but these correlations decreased in later sessions. Both subjective distress and vividness decreased significantly with exposure. Greater reductions in subjective distress between the first and last exposure session were related to better outcome. However, contrary to hypothesis, vividness was not related to outcome. Theoretical implications of the results are discussed.