CPT Trauma Care
Trauma symptoms often occur in response to trauma reminders, sometimes called triggers. These can be sights, sounds, smells, or other cues that remind a person of their trauma. When a client is confronted with a trauma reminder, they may experience feelings like those experienced during the original trauma. This can lead to thoughts and actions as if the trauma were recurring, even though they are safe.
Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) is a specialized type of counseling designed for the treatment of PTSD in adults. CPT is a structured treatment; however, aspects of both the administration and content of the therapy can be flexed based on the individual needs of the client. CPT helps patients identify and change negative thoughts about a traumatic event. The goal is to create a new understanding of the event and reduce its negative effects on the patient’s life. Trauma Therapy has 3 main components that have been researched for years, to provide the best outcome for people impacted by current or past traumatic experiences.
Stabilization
The stabilization and skill-building phase begins with a focus on psychoeducation about the prevalence, impact, and treatment of experienced trauma, working toward developing skills to manage trauma reminders. Therapists rely on SUDS – which stand for Subjective Units of Distress to help them understand how their clients are tolerating a stressor or event. It can be on a 1-to-10 scale, with 1 being low distress and a 10 being highest distress.
This is how a therapist knows how far to push during an intervention or homework assignment. It is also useful in determining whether you are making progress during an intervention. We expect to see higher SUDS levels at the beginning of treatment, and then a drop in levels as time goes on. Some people drop sharply, some drop in steps and then plateau, and some drop very gradually over a long period of time.
Trauma Narrative
The details of the traumatic memories are gradually introduced, discussed and written about over the course of this middle phase of treatment. The development of an Impact Statement allows the client to confront the trauma and describe it in growing detail as they progress in their treatment. We can also use techniques such as storyboarding and poster boards, to allow for verbal and non-verbal expression.
Consolidation
The final phase of treatment then focuses on the integration and consolidation of what has been learned, safety skills development, if appropriate to the case, and the mastery of new behaviors and emotional responses.
