What Are the Treatments for PTSD?
Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a type of anxiety disorder, can happen after a deeply threatening or scary event. Even if you weren’t directly involved, the shock of what happened can be so great that you have a hard time living a normal life.
When you have PTSD, it might feel like you’ll never get your life back. But it can be treated. Short- and long term psychotherapy and medications can work very well. Often, the two kinds of treatment are more effective together.
People with PTSD can have insomnia, flashbacks, low self-esteem, and a lot of painful or unpleasant emotions. You might constantly relive the event — or lose your memory of it altogether.
Therapy
PTSD therapy has three main goals:
- Improve your symptoms
- Teach you skills to deal with it
- Restore your self-esteem
Most PTSD therapies fall under the umbrella of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). The idea is to change the thought patterns that are disturbing your life. This might happen through talking about your trauma or concentrating on where your fears come from.
Depending on your situation, group or family therapy might be a good choice for you instead of individual sessions.
Cognitive Processing Therapy
CPT is a 12-week course of treatment, with weekly sessions of 60-90 minutes.
At first, you’ll talk about the traumatic event with your therapist and how your thoughts related to it have affected your life. Then you’ll write in detail about what happened. This process helps you examine how you think about your trauma and figure out new ways to live with it.
For example, maybe you’ve been blaming yourself for something. Your therapist will help you take into account all the things that were beyond your control, so you can move forward, understanding and accepting that, deep down, it wasn’t your fault, despite things you did or didn’t do.