What is cognitive processing therapy?

Cognitive processing therapy (CPT) is a type of cognitive therapy used to treat people suffering from post -traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Most often it is used for war veterans, people who have witnessed a violent attack, and victims of trauma, such as victims of sexual attacks. CPT combines aspects of cognitive therapy, clinical psychology and psychotherapy. Therapy occurs in three main steps. People learn about how their anger, nightmares, and avoidance problems are related to trauma and how their lives have changed as a result. The relationship between memories and symptoms should be understood that patients gain the ability to allow therapy to help them get their emotional obstacles.

The second step in cognitive therapy is to realize all thoughts and feelings, bo, bopositive and negative. Human beings often associate emotions with specific memories, and when they are trauma, these reactions are often on a subconscious level. Feelings of fear, anger, guilt and others are bothCne automatic reactions to trauma. Awareness of specific events that triggers these feelings helps the suffering PTSD take a step back and find out how their reactions affect their everyday life.

Writing is often therapeutic and part of the third step of cognitive therapy. Patients are recommended to write about the event that has appeared and describes the point of trauma in detail. This helps people circumvent the need to avoid the topic and face it. The aim of the therapist is to reduce blame and self -blame and at the same time increase the ability to accept what happened.

In many cases, exposure therapy is used as part of cognitive therapy. This form of therapy is exposed to the patient with a reminder of trauma. Pictures, smells and sounds are used to help patients face their fears.

Stress Inoculation (SIT) is another type of therapy that can be used. Therapists use stimuli thatThey show which things work as reminiscent. The patient can then learn how to cope with symptoms that occur through techniques such as deep breathing. This particular type of therapy is usually beneficial for people who suffer from panic attacks as a symptom of PTSD.

The final goal of cognitive therapy is to help a person with PTSD to learn about what they are experiencing so that behavior and thinking can change. On average, 12 sessions are common to complete the process, but the therapist can recommend more depending on each individual case and how quickly the progress happens. In addition, sessions can be one in one, in a group environment or a combination of both.