Have you ever felt that a part of you was “stuck” in a moment you couldn’t escape? That your brain perpetually rewound a scene that you wanted to forget? You may be experiencing the effects of post traumatic stress disorder or PTSD may feel like a tug-of-war between your past and present, making it challenging to move forward, to trust again, or even to breathe. But there is hope for you! Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is a way to heal your experience. CBT is not merely about talking about what happened; it is about changing the way your mind responds to trauma. In this blog, we will talk about how CBT works, why CBT works for PTSD, and how people can reign in their lives to reclaim their emotional experience, one thought at a time.
Understanding PTSD
PTSD is more than simply a bad memory. It is a mental health condition that is often diagnosed after an individual either experienced or observed a traumatic event. PTSD is often characterized by intrusive thoughts, flashbacks, nightmares, emotional numbing, anxiety, irritability, and difficulty with relationships. The condition affects people from all walks of life including military veterans, survivors of abuse, people involved in accidents, and even children that have experienced neglect or trauma. In such a vibrant, densely populated city like New York, experiences that provoke PTSD are not uncommon. Due to the high intensity of urban life, the supply of quality mental health treatments, especially CBT for PTSD in NYC has grown significantly.
What is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy?
CBT is a goal-oriented structured form of psychotherapy that focuses on identifying thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that are interconnected. CBT identifies and challenges negative thought patterns and behavior (unhelpful thinking) and can help change those maladaptive patterns that lead to emotional suffering. For people with PTSD, cognitive-behavioral therapy helps lessen the emotional thought of trauma memories as well as target the dysfunctional beliefs and fears that are the result of trauma. CBT uses the rationale and practical tools any survivor can use to gain greater control of their healing.
How CBT Helps in PTSD Recovery?
1. Identifying Negative Thought Patterns
Identifying and addressing maladaptive thinking patterns after experiencing trauma is one of the foundational components of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), for coping with PTSD. The individual with PTSD may internalize distorted beliefs such as “I’m weak because I couldn’t stop the trauma,” “The world is completely unsafe,” or “I can’t trust anyone anymore.” Not only are these thoughts distorted and untrue, but the distortion often embeds feelings of shame, fear, and isolation, and contributes to an overall disruption in the process of healing.
CBT provides a means of identifying these beliefs, and supporting the individual in the process of replacing them with more fair, balanced, and compassionate perspectives. For example, the individual transitions from “I should have stopped the trauma,” to “The trauma wasn’t my fault. I did what I could to survive.” While this is a simple framework, working toward this way of thinking is vital for rebuilding a sense of self-worth, safety and attachment, and developing more emotional muscle to cope with challenges.
2. Facing the Trauma
The hardest part of PTSD is usually avoidance of memories, emotions, or circumstances that remind them of the trauma. Avoidance might provide some temporary relief, but over the long-term, avoidance can actually exacerbate the overall difficulty of coping with PTSD. Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) enables individuals to explore and face these fears in a safe and structured setting. CBT for PTSD in NYC, your therapist may use exposure therapy to support the individual in confronting the traumatic event, whether that be in imagery or in actuality (with the help of the therapist), they will walk through the exposure to lessen the emotional intensity of the experience. Over time they will find themselves less attached to the trauma and all of its emotions.
3. Managing Triggers and Flashbacks
CBT provides individuals with practical tools for dealing with the sometimes overwhelming triggers and flashbacks that often accompany PTSD. These tools serve to ground individuals in the present, rather than being overwhelmed by memories of the past. Grounding techniques can include focusing on five senses to help anchor an individual in the present moment. Deep breathing helps to calm a person down, and reduce the body’s stress response. There are also thought-stopping techniques that help to intervene in the spiraling thoughts that can be intrusive. Mindfulness training teaches an individual to notice their thoughts and feelings without judgment, which fosters emotional resilience. When individuals notice their triggers, and then learn to enact a mindful response, rather than immediate reaction, they gradually regain the sense of control over their emotions and their lives.
Specific Form of CBT for PTSD
Even though traditional Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is very effective, there are adaptations of CBT that were specifically developed for PTSD. The first form is a Prolonged Exposure therapy (PE). The goal of PE is for individuals to confront trauma-related memories and situations that they have been avoiding. Over time, when individuals are exposed to these memories and situations repeatedly in a controlled way, the emotional intensity linked with the trauma diminishes, and the memory of the trauma becomes less impactful as the brain forcibly “reprocesses” the event in an adaptive manner.
The second form is Cognitive Processing therapy (CPT) is to identify and challenge negative thoughts, or beliefs, that often follow trauma. This often involves individuals writing about their trauma and then identifying “stuck points” guilt or shame, and then applying evidence-based reasoning to challenge these stuck points and replace their interpretations with more constructive thinking. The last approach is especially important for use with children.
Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT) is designed to be used with children, adolescents, and their caregivers. TF-CBT uses cognitive-behavioral techniques, and trauma-sensitive principles, while also focusing on developing safety, trust, and communication. All of these modalities have organized structures and supportive frameworks for consumers to begin their healing journey and toward recovery from trauma.
Benefits of CBT for PTSD
CBT has a wide range of advantages for individuals in the recovery process from PTSD. One of the biggest improvements is in emotional regulation. Survivors often express less anxiety, less irritability, and emotional overwhelm. Sleep often improves through rebuilding coping strategies and dealing with the underlying source of distress. Relationships improve, often with more trust, better ability to communicate, and in turn a greater ability to feel emotions and connection with loved ones.
However, one of the biggest benefits to note is empowerment. Survivors often reconnect with their self-worth, and start to declare back their “ownership” of purpose and control over their lives. And ultimately through managing avoidance and behavior, the act of stepping back into the world and engaging again in activities and goals feel much more confident than prior to CBT. These advantages and improvements are collectively some of the most impactful evidence of how CBT has the ability to change one’s life in the healing journey from PTSD.
Conclusion
Life with PTSD often feels like being stuck on a treadmill of fear and pain. But with appropriate resources and support, healing isn’t just possible; it’s treatable. CBT for PTSD in NYC provides a way forward, a way of facing trauma, confronting patterns of destruction, and creating a future filled with meaning, peace, and resilience. If you know anyone struggling with PTSD, or if you are struggling with PTSD, there is help available! Cognitive Behavioral Therapy offers a transformative process, based upon research, that has changed the lives of countless people suffering in pain from PTSD.
References
Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG). (2022, June 2). In brief: Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). InformedHealth.org – NCBI Bookshelf. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK279297/
Kar, N. (2011). Cognitive behavioral therapy for the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder: A review. Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment, 7, 167. https://doi.org/10.2147/NDT.S10389
“PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder): Symptoms & Treatment.” Cleveland Clinic, https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/9545-post-traumatic-stress-disorder-ptsd
“Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) – Symptoms and causes.” Mayo Clinic, 16 August 2024,https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/post-traumatic-stress-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20355967#:~:text=Post%2Dtraumatic%20stress%20disorder%20(PTSD)%20is%20a%20mental
