Traditionally, primary care has avoided PTSD as clinicians have felt they have few resources for treatment beyond medication and knowing that exposure therapies are more effective for patients. This is coupled with the fact that it takes, on average, 19 years for individuals to seek help for their traumatic experiences. There is also the time factor, where clinicians are afraid to open the can of worms due to time pressure. This leaves the patients with their can of worms unopened.

A fresh approach is to use written exposure therapy (WET) therapy, which involves five sessions of writing about the trauma in detail and how it has affected your life. It is designed for non-psychologists and is very efficient and effective when patients complete all five sessions. There will be a discussion on how to do this in primary care. There are options such as HIPs or health coaches (HCs need indemnity) or clinic nurses. Some GPs and NPs may be interested in doing it as it is very satisfying to get patients through all five sessions.