The incidence of trauma forces individuals to struggle with thoughts and memories associated with the event. Sufferers have a tough time making sense of what had happened. Patients frequently find themselves “stuck” in thoughts concerning the trauma. They think about how the event affects their lives. The feeling of inability to make sense of such trauma may make them avoid thinking or dealing with their memories.
Cognitive Processing Therapy assists by providing a new method to handle distress thoughts and gain an understanding of events. Using skills learned in this therapy can help the affected individual to understand why any recovery from the traumatic events is hard. This therapy will help the sufferer to learn how going through the trauma varied the manner he or she views the world, others and himself or herself. The manner by which individuals think and observe things directly affects the manner they act and feel.
There are four major components to Cognitive Processing Therapy:
Learning about PTSD symptoms.
The therapy starts with education concerning particular PTSD symptoms. It also includes how the treatment could help. The plan of therapy will be reviewed. Reasons for each component of therapy will be elaborated. It will be possible to query and know how the patient is going to do the therapy. The individual could also learn the reason these skills could help.
Be aware of feelings and thoughts.
The therapy concentrates on assisting you to be aware of the patient’s feelings and thoughts. When any bad things happen, they will try to understand its root cause. The problem starts when an individual gets stuck on such thoughts. In this therapy, patients will learn the technique of paying attention to these thoughts concerning trauma and how they feel about it. After this, the patient will be ordered to step back and then questioned about the trauma and its influence. This will assist in thinking about the trauma differently. It is possible to do this either by talking to the therapist or by writing.
Learning skills.
As the patient becomes increasingly aware of his or her feelings and thoughts, the person will learn the skills needed to help you challenge or question the person’s thoughts. It will be possible to do such a thing with the assistance of worksheets.
Understand the change in beliefs.
In the final stage, patients will learn about common belief changes which occur post trauma. Many individuals face problems when they try to understand how to live like before in the same world post trauma. The therapy will help patients to talk about such beliefs in different areas.
For more information on CBT, you can visit the Centre for Cognitive Behaviour Therapy in Ontario, Canada.