CYP Wellbeing Network Seminar: Developing a Culturally Informed Guided Written Exposure Therapy: Cross-Cultural Design and Empirical Evaluation in Chinese Adolescents and Adults with PTSD

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) affects millions worldwide, yet access to treatment remains highly unequal. In low-resource settings, fewer than 12% of individuals with PTSD receive care within a year, creating widespread suffering and societal burden. While effective PTSD treatments exist, they were largely developed in high-income countries and require extensive therapist training and clinical infrastructure—resources scarce in many global regions.

Our research addresses this gap through culturally informed written-based exposure therapies designed with implementation in mind from the outset. We developed a series intervention for Chinese PTSD populations, including a self-guided online program, online delivered individual therapy, and school-based group treatment for adolescents.

These approaches were designed to be affordable, culturally appropriate, and less reliant on specialized mental health professionals, making them well-suited for low-resource settings. This work contributes to efforts to reduce global mental health disparities through scalable, context-sensitive PTSD interventions.