Effective Treatments for Adult PTSD: Proven Paths to Recovery with PE, CPT, and WET
The Impact of Trauma
Experiencing trauma can have profound effects on both your mind and body. A traumatic stressor is a life experience that involves exposure to or threats of death, serious injury, or sexual violence. These stressors can significantly impact your well-being and usually require a period of adjustment following the event. Common examples of traumatic stressors include natural disasters, mass violence or warzone exposure, interpersonal violence, and serious accidents. After a traumatic event, it’s common to have various stress reactions such as feelings of anxiety, frequent thoughts about the trauma, and difficulty sleeping. It may initially be difficult to perform daily activities, attend work or school, or even spend time with loved ones. While most people gradually recover and start to feel better after a few weeks, others may find that these trauma reactions persist and evolve into what is known as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
Recovery from PTSD is not only possible, but probable when you choose a treatment that is proven to work.
The Burden of PTSD on Your Mental & Physical Health
PTSD is a mental health condition that can develop after a person has experienced or witnessed a traumatic event. It is marked by intense, disturbing thoughts and feelings related to the trauma that last long after the event has ended. Individuals with PTSD may experience unwanted thoughts or nightmares about the trauma; avoid people, places or situations that remind them of the trauma; frequently feel anxious, sad, angry or guilty; blame themselves for the trauma; and feel disconnected from others. The impact of PTSD is not only psychological but can extend to physical health, contributing to issues such as chronic pain, cardiovascular problems, and a suppressed immune system. These symptoms can greatly interfere with your daily life, making it challenging to work, manage relationships, or even handle routine tasks.
Leading Treatments for PTSD: Why It Matters to Choose a Therapy That Works
Addressing PTSD is crucial to helping individuals regain control over their lives.
Trauma-focused psychotherapy is the leading choice for treating PTSD as it has the most empirical evidence supporting its effectiveness. Trauma-focused simply means that therapy will focus on your memory of trauma or the meaning you have attributed to the trauma.
These therapies address specific thoughts, emotions, and behaviors that have become difficult or problematic since the trauma occurred.
Utilizing various techniques, they assist you in processing the trauma and gaining a clearer understanding of its impact on your life.
Among the various trauma-focused therapies available, Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) and Prolonged Exposure (PE) are the most widely recommended by American Psychological Association (APA), the Department of Veterans Affairs/Department of Defense (VA/DOD), and the International Society of Traumatic Stress Studies (ISTSS).
These therapies are considered first-line treatments, meaning they are the preferred initial approach due to their strong evidence base and effectiveness in reducing PTSD symptoms.
Written Exposure Therapy (WET), an emerging trauma-focused therapy, is also recognized as a promising treatment for PTSD given its proven effectiveness and efficiency to date.
PTSD Treatment at Upward: Why It Matters to Choose a Therapist with Expertise
At Upward, we are committed to offering these leading PTSD treatments to support you in your journey toward recovery and well-being.
Our psychologists have been formally trained, certified as proficient, and have extensive experience providing these trauma-focused therapies.
Moreover, our therapists have specialized experience working with professionals who are at increased risk of trauma exposure such as military and veterans, medical and healthcare professionals, first responders, and journalists.
Many of our psychologists have facilitated training, consultation, and supervision for mental health professionals and trainees in these PTSD therapies at a local, national, and international level.
Finally, our clinicians have specialized training and experience offering the leading evidence-based therapies for the most common co-morbid conditions that often accompany PTSD, including depression, insomnia, panic attacks, and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), as well as couples therapy for partners experiencing relationship distress.
Emerging research indicates that “massed” treatment, namely attending PTSD therapy sessions at least three times per week if not daily, can lead to higher treatment completion rates, reduced avoidance, and faster symptom improvement for some individuals. We are proud to also offer PE, CPT, and WET in this more intensive, condensed format, rather than the traditional weekly sessions. You and your therapist may decide together if this treatment option is right for you.
Our goal is to provide you with PTSD treatments that are proven to work, so that you may recover and progress your life without the burden of a past trauma standing in your way.
Upward’s PTSD Treatments: Answers to Four Key Questions
Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT):
1. How does it work? Helps you learn to identify and change the extreme negative thoughts you’ve had since the trauma. As you change these unhelpful thoughts, your feelings change as well, and symptoms decrease.
- How long does it take? Weekly 60min sessions for ~12 weeks
- What will I do in therapy?
- Write about and discuss in what ways the trauma changed how you think about yourself, others and the world
- Learn skills that help you recognize unhelpful thoughts, examine alternative perspectives, and choose more balanced thoughts that result in less intense negative emotions
- What will I do between sessions?
- Complete worksheets that help you practice these skills in your daily life
NCPTSD Resources:
The goal of CPT is to help you learn to change the unhelpful negative thoughts and beliefs you have experienced since the trauma. Since trauma is typically an overwhelming experience that falls far outside the range of normal life events most people anticipate, it often disrupts a person’s most basic beliefs about themselves, others, and the world.
Trauma results in extreme thoughts or beliefs, such as “The world is completely dangerous”, “Other people cannot be trusted”, or “I am incompetent.” These extreme thoughts result in extreme emotions such strong, intense feelings of fear, guilt, or sadness. CPT helps you develop the skills to change how you think, which also changes how you feel.
CPT involves exploring the meaning of the trauma by initially writing about and discussing why you think the trauma occurred and how the trauma changed your views of yourself, others, and the world. Over the course of therapy, you will learn skills that help you identify unhelpful thoughts when they occur, evaluate these thoughts to determine if they are accurate or if they are extreme due to the trauma, and generate more balanced, helpful ways of thinking that result in less intense negative emotions.
This therapy utilizes worksheets within session to help you learn these skills and as part of your daily practice so that you use these skills in your daily life.
There is also version of CPT that involves you writing about the details of your trauma. You then read this written narrative in session and discuss the experience with your therapist. This is optional component of this treatment. You and your therapist can decide together if this is something to include in therapy.
Prolonged Exposure Therapy (PE):
1. How does it work? Helps you approach trauma-related memories, feelings and situations you avoid. As you experience these things and talk about them in session, you learn there is no need to avoid them, and symptoms decrease.
- How long does it take? Weekly 90min sessions for 8 to 15 weeks
- What will I do in therapy?
- Think about trauma memory and talk about details of your trauma in session (imaginal exposure) and then discuss this experience with your therapist.
- Make list of trauma-related things you avoid and gradually approach them in your daily life (in vivo exposure). Discuss these experiences with your therapist and decide together which new things to approach each week.
- What will I do between sessions?
- Listen to audio recording of you talking about your trauma (imaginal exposure)
- Practice approaching trauma-related things you avoid (in vivo exposure)
NCPTSD Resources:
The goal of PE is to help you learn to approach trauma reminders you typically avoid in a safe way, so your distress decreases, and you learn that these reminders are not dangerous, thus there’s no reason to continue to avoid them. This is accomplished through two types of exposure techniques.
Imaginal exposure (IE) is visualizing the trauma memory in your mind and then narrating the details of that memory out loud during the therapy session. You typically do this multiple times and then discuss the experience with your therapist. IE is recorded during the session, and you’ll listen to that recording each day as part of your between-session practice. IE helps you gain better control of your thoughts and feelings about the trauma.
In-vivo exposure (IV) is gradually approaching trauma reminders in real life including places, people, activities and things that you typically avoid. You and your therapist will work together to develop of list of these items and then each week decide together which 2 or 3 things you’ll work on as part of daily practice. IV helps you reclaim many aspects of your life that have fallen by the wayside due to avoidance.
These exposure exercises create a new opportunity for learning. As you practice these exposure exercises each week, you begin to learn that these trauma reminders (including the trauma memory) are not the same as the trauma itself. PE helps you learn that you can handle yourself in these situations even if they initially feel scary, that your distress or anxiety will decrease by approaching as opposed avoiding these reminders, and that many of the things you avoid due to fears that they are dangerous are in fact mostly safe. If it was safe to go to a crowded grocery store before your trauma, it’s likely still safe to go a crowded grocery store after the trauma.
Written Exposure Therapy (WET):
1. How does it work? Helps lessen your emotional distress and physical reactions about the trauma by writing about your trauma memory in session. As you find new ways to understand the experience, your PTSD symptoms decrease.
2. How long does it take? Weekly 50min sessions for 5 weeks
- What will I do in therapy?
- You will write in detail about your traumatic event during each session, including the thoughts and feelings you were having at the time of the trauma. You will then discuss this experience with your therapist.
- Learn how your PTSD symptoms are connected to your thoughts and feelings about the trauma. Talking with your therapist helps you develop new ways of thinking about the event and what it means to you.
- What will I do between sessions?
- There is no between-session practice with this therapy.
NCPTSD Resources:
The goal of WET is to help you recall the trauma with less distress, showing you that you can cope with the strong negative feelings such as anxiety, sadness, or guilt. When you have PTSD, it's normal to feel like the traumatic event is too overwhelming to handle, and you might avoid anything that reminds you of it, thinking it's dangerous. Writing about the event can make you more comfortable with intense negative emotions as well as the physical reactions like a fast heartbeat or sweating.
WET involves 5 sessions where you will spend 30 minutes writing about your traumatic experience, which is called your trauma narrative. Afterward, your therapist will talk with you about your experience while writing. Discussing your writing sessions with your therapist can help you gain new perspectives on the event and its significance to you.
Over the course of therapy, you will learn that the distress you feel decreases and that the sense of danger associated with the past event doesn't affect the memory of it. This process will help you manage your thoughts and feelings about the trauma and find new ways to reduce your PTSD symptoms.
The Impact of PTSD on Relationships: Why Couples Therapy Can Help
PTSD can have a profound impact on intimate relationships, often creating significant emotional and physical distance between partners. PTSD symptoms can make it challenging for you to connect with loved ones. These symptoms might lead to misunderstandings, decreased communication, and increased conflict within your relationship. Partners of individuals with PTSD may also feel helpless, frustrated, or isolated as they struggle to support their ones. This relationship strain can erode trust and intimacy, making it difficult for you and your partner to maintain a healthy and fulfilling relationship. Our practice seeks to offer specialized treatments to help couples overcome these challenges and rebuild stronger, more resilient connections.
Cognitive Behavioral Conjoint Therapy (CBCT) can be a powerful tool in helping couples navigate the challenges posed by PTSD. This evidence-based therapeutic approach combines cognitive-behavioral techniques with conjoint therapy to address the symptoms of PTSD within the context of an intimate relationship. By engaging you and your partner in treatment, CBCT aims to improve communication, enhance mutual understanding, and foster a supportive environment. The therapy focuses on teaching each of you skills to manage stress, challenge negative thought patterns, and strengthen your sense of connection. Through guided sessions, you and your partner learn how to work together to address PTSD-related issues and build a resilient relationship.
How Do I Get Started?
Recovery from PTSD is not only possible, but probable when you choose a treatment that is proven to work.
Upward is proud to offer gold-standard PTSD treatment nationwide. We have psychologists in Alabama, Tennessee, and Missouri, and we offer telehealth services to almost every state.
Are you ready for treatment that works?
If you interested in PTSD treatment at Upward, please contact us to schedule a free 15-minute consultation at 205-983-4063, info@upwardbehavioralhealth.com, or via our website.