Pharmacological, Somatic, and Behavioral Augmentations of PE

Prolonged exposure (PE) therapy is an established, effective treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD; Powers et al., 2010; McLean et al., 2022). However, there continues to be a significant minority of individuals who drop out of treatment, do not respond to treatment, or do not fully recover following PE (Foa et al., 2018; Steenkamp et al., 2015). Therefore, augmentation strategies are needed and have been implemented to try to address these concerns and increase engagement and responsiveness to treatment. Augmentation strategies primarily aim to either enhance learning or enhance the tolerability of PE treatment; therefore, we have broken this chapter into a review of augmentation strategies that are theorized to (1) enhance learning or (2) enhance tolerability. However, it is important to note that some may target both.