Flashback Therapy

The other day I was reading an article in a magazine about a relatively new type of therapy that doctors are using to treat patients with PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder). Patients are instructed to relive the moments that caused their PTSD with the belief that reliving these moments over and over again and out loud will cause them less stress with each recollection and eventually result in them getting over it. To kind of sum it up.
Two patients were profiled, both women, one a rape victim and the other a victim of long term psychological abuse by her husband. The therapist asked them to tell her what happened word for word - "then he pinned me down on the bed and started removing my clothes..." the rape victim sobbed while reliving her rape out loud. The first time she told the story her stress levels were extremely high. The second time she told it they'd gone down a bit, and the third time even more.
Of course, docs are divided on this form of therapy some saying it doesn't always work to heal an individual but in some instances can even exacerbate their symptoms. Like 70% of the patients who sought therapy after the Hurricane Katrina disaster. According to the article, only 20% of Katrina survivors benefitted from this form of treatment. But reading this made me think of my 3 hour episode last week where I relived a past relationship frame by frame while trying to fall asleep. I don't know what triggered those thoughts but I couldn't stop them from snowballing, one into the other, seemingly out of my control. The mind is a marvelous yet fragile thing. Now I'm wondering if that was my mind repairing itself, sort of like a self-healing ep. Does that make sense? Like the way a wound heals into a scab, the body's ability to repair itself. I'm intrigued and plan to do more research/reading on this. Thoughts?

P.S - the article did say that some people find solace and healing just by writing about their troubles or talking to close friends and family.