Psychotherapy for PTSD
Psychotherapy, also known as "talk therapy", involves a trained therapist working with an individual or group of people on common objectives. Depending on the type of psychotherapy, the therapist can offer support, teach coping skills or help the patient(s) explore relationships.
One therapy that has been shown to be effective for PTSD is cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT). This focuses on exploring the link between a person's thoughts, emotions and behaviour and helping your child come to terms with the traumatic event they experienced. Within the range of CBT options, trauma-focused cognitive behavioural therapy has been particularly successful in treating PTSD in children and teens.
Trauma-focused cognitive behavioural therapy (TF-CBT)
TF-CBT is a structured form of therapy involving a child or teen meeting a therapist for one session a week over an average of 12 to 16 weeks. It is the psychotherapy with the most evidence for success in treating PTSD in children aged three to 18 years.
TF-CBT involves a number of components:
- psychoeducation: explaining PTSD and its symptoms to the child and caregiver(s)
- stress management
- expressing and modifying emotions
- catching and changing distorted and unhelpful thoughts
- creating the narrative (story) of the traumatic event(s)
- processing the trauma narrative
- managing behaviour (through parent sessions)
- parent-child sessions
- evaluation
Other forms of psychotherapy
Sometimes PTSD is treated with other forms of psychotherapy, such as:
- abuse-focused cognitive behavioural therapy (AB-CBT), which helps physically abused children who experience aggression, social difficulties and trauma-related symptoms
- parent-child interaction therapy (PCIT), which helps physically abusive parents or other caregivers improve how they interact with their children