Journal of Traumatic Stress April 2012, 25, 150–156 A Pilot Study of a 12-Week Model of Group-Based Exposure Therapy for Veterans With PTSD Roy John Sutherland, 1,2 Juliette M. Mott, 1–4 Stacey Holmes Lanier, 1,2 Wright Williams, 1,2 David J. Ready, 5,6 and Ellen J. Teng 1–4 1 Michael E. DeBakey Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Houston, Texas, USA 2 Menninger Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas, USA 3 South Central Mental Illness Research, Education, and Clinical Center, Houston, Texas, USA 4 Houston Center for Quality of Care and Utilization Studies, Houston, Texas, USA 5 Atlanta Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Atlanta, Georgia, USA 6 Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, Georgia, USA Group-based exposure therapy (GBET) is an intensive group treatment that targets posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms through repeated imaginal and in vivo exposure. The purpose of the present study was to assess the feasibility and acceptability of a modified 12-week course of GBET (modified from the standard 16 weeks) and to examine its effectiveness in reducing veterans’ PTSD symptoms. Participants were 10 male Operation Iraqi Freedom and Vietnam-era veterans recruited from a PTSD specialty clinic at a large Veterans Affairs Medical Center. All participants were retained and demonstrated clinically significant reductions in PTSD symptoms (η 2 = .84– .87) comparable to the standard protocol. The findings from this small sample indicate that the abbreviated 12-week GBET protocol is a potentially effective treatment for PTSD. Although a large body of empirical evidence supports the ef- ficacy of individually-administered exposure therapy for post- traumatic stress disorder (PTSD; e.g., Rothbaum, Meadows, Resick, & Foy, 2000), there are few studies of group-based ap- proaches to exposure therapy. This may be due in part to concern that exposing individuals to the details of other patient’s trau- matic experiences may cause secondary traumatization (e.g., Resick & Schnicke, 1996), combined with previous results demonstrating limited effectiveness for exposure delivered in a group format (Monson, Rodriguez, & Warner, 2005; Schnurr et al., 2003). Schnurr et al. (2003) conducted the largest treatment trial testing a group exposure protocol to date. This multisite study compared an exposure-based treatment, trauma-focused group therapy (TFGT), to a no-exposure control treatment. Although both treatments demonstrated modest effectiveness at treating PTSD in veterans, 23% of TFGT participants Roy John Sutherland and Juliette M. Mott contributed equally to this work. Roy John Sutherland is now at HealthEast Care System, St. Joseph’s Hospital, St. Paul, MN. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to R. John Suther- land, HealthEast Care System, St. Joseph’s Hospital, Mental Health and Ad- diction Service Clinic, 45F 10th Street g7000, St. Paul, MN 55102. E-mail: RJSutherland@healtheast.org Copyright C  2012 International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies. View this article online at wileyonlinelibrary.com DOI: 10.1002/jts.21679 dropped out of treatment, significantly more than dropped out of the control condition (9%). Given its strengths, includ- ing a large sample size (N = 360) and rigorous methodol- ogy, this study has been widely cited in the research liter- ature. Thus, the results of Schnurr et al.’s study likely dis- couraged the dissemination of group exposure for PTSD (Bis- son, 2003), despite the authors’ assertion that further research was needed before firm conclusions could be drawn about its effectiveness. A more recently developed treatment, group-based expo- sure therapy (GBET), has shown promising results in reduc- ing PTSD severity and maintaining high retention rates in a veteran population (Ready et al., 2008, 2012). A manualized, cognitive–behavioral treatment initially developed to treat com- bat veterans with severe PTSD, GBET employs in vivo and imaginal exposure techniques similar to those used in individ- ual prolonged exposure (PE) therapy (Foa, Hembree, & Roth- baum, 2007) and TFGT, in combination with elements designed to increase coping skills, reduce social withdrawal, and teach reappraisal of cognitions and behaviors (e.g., Donovan, Padin- Rivera, & Kowaliw, 2001; Humphreys, Westerink, Giarrantano, & Brooks, 1999). GBET is similar to other exposure-based group treatments (e.g., PE, TFGT) in that patients participate in imaginal expo- sure exercises in session. In GBET, the group format provides veterans with the opportunity to give supportive feedback im- mediately before and after imaginal exposures and allows group 150