Cognitive Behavioral Therapy For PTSD Treatment

PTSD Treatment Is Possible!

Photo: ©iStockphoto.com

There are many good treatments available for PTSD. If you have PTSD you should not avoid getting treated for PTSD. Opting for treatment for PTSD can be a difficult decision – as you don’t want to remember the past, let alone discuss it. You might fear that people will not understand your problem, and worse, that your condition will not be regarded as a problem per se.

But, the fact is there are many effective PTSD treatments available, and many people have benefitted from them in the past. You will be treated by a professional who has a deep understanding of the subject, and who knows how to handle you and your experiences.

To make sure that you really are suffering from post traumatic stress, click here to take a self test.

The treatment can be in the form of therapy, it might be some medication, or a combination of both.

What Is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)?

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy has been very effective in treating PTSD. After the traumatic experience you might be suffering from feelings of guilt and anger. You may feel guilty about certain things that you did or did not do. You might also suffer from uncontrollable bouts of anger. Many people suffer from depression after the traumatic experience. Since they don’t understand what is happening with them they may turn to drug abuse. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy helps you come to terms with what has happened with you.

There are several types of Cognitive Behavioral Therapies. A few of them that are used in treatment for Post Traumatic Stress are discussed below.

PTSD Treatment With Cognitive Restructuring

After the trauma you remember it with feelings of dread, fear and helplessness. Certain aspects of the traumatic experience leave deep scars on your mind, creating thought patterns that create stress and anxiety in your everyday life. The aim of Cognitive Restructuring is to help you understand those disturbing thought patterns, and enable you to live a fulfilling life.

During cognitive therapy you learn, with the help of your therapist, to identify self defeating thoughts, and to replace them with healthy ones. You learn to deal with emotions that are causing distress in your life, and to adopt a more balanced view of the world.

Exposure Therapy For PTSD Treatment

Exposure Therapy means, gradually exposing yourself to memories, emotions and situations that you dare not due to their close relation with traumatic events.

When you discuss about the trauma again and again with someone who completely understands you, your fear of remembering the traumatic experiences tends to wear away. You will start understanding how the memories of traumatic experience are affecting you and creating discomfort in your inner life. Through the guidance of therapist you learn to cope with negative feelings and ways to replace them with positive ones. You gradually expose yourself to the memories of the trauma.

You may start by focusing on the less painful memories. Gradually you remember the more painful ones. This is called progressive desensitization. Fear, anger and guilt are slowly replaced by acceptance and a better understanding of your self.

The Exposure Therapy along with some relaxation techniques has proved to be very effective PTSD treatment.

EMDR for Treating Post Traumatic Stress

EMDR, or Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, is comparatively new technique under the broad category of Cognitive Therapy, and is seen as effective PTSD treatment. It is based on the assumption that traumatic events freeze certain reactions in your mind, so that whenever you remember those events, you do so with the same set of emotions. During EMDR you recall painful events, and at the same time focus on some distractions, like hand movements, sounds, eye movements, etc. For example, while you are recalling some events, your therapist might ask you to focus on his hand, which he will be moving back and forth.

EMDR as a PTSD treatment is believed to free the mind from conditioned responses, and enables you to bring yourself out of the vicious grip of the dreaded memories.