PTSD Therapy

I offer three types of treatment, all of which can result in a significant reduction of symptoms:

Cognitive Processing Therapy enables us to focus on understanding your belief systems and how they might have had an impact on, and been impacted by, the trauma you experienced. Together we will work to understand your underlying beliefs about yourself, other people, the world, and your ideas about safety, power and control, esteem, intimacy, and trust. If you believe that others can’t be trusted, that the world is a dangerous place, or if you experience guilt and shame about what happened to you, this approach can help. This work is done both together in session as well as in structured homework assignments between sessions to empower you to become your own cognitive therapist.

Prolonged Exposure is about re-engaging with things you have come to think are dangerous due to the trauma you experienced. This approach involves two components. First, we establish a hierarchy of situations you find triggering out in the world. Then in a safe and incremental way, we gently approach the activities and situations you became afraid of so that your body can re-learn that these things are not dangerous in the present. The second aspect of this approach involves working through the emotions that were not processed after your trauma. We do this together as you share a full account of the trauma in session with me in as much detail as possible. The impact of intrusive memories, overwhelming emotions, flashbacks, and nightmares can be greatly reduced by processing together what you previously avoided.

(Please contact me to discuss the fee for these 90-minute sessions).

Therapy for Nightmares is a two-to-four-session treatment for recurrent nightmares, which often result from a traumatic event. Learning how nightmares work allows us to disrupt the pattern. In this treatment, we focus on what a nightmare is, on sleep stages, sleep hygiene, neurobiology, and how the brain creates nightmares after trauma. A nightmare related to trauma can actually become a learned habit and there are things we do that keep nightmares in our lives. This treatment involves rescripting nightmares into something more positive and is highly effective.