Treating Trauma
There are many different treatments available for trauma-related symptoms. Treatment can lead to significant improvement and even recovery.
Learn About Trauma Treatment
Online Resources:
- National Center for PTSD. See drop-down menus under these headings:
- Understand PTSD treatment
- Apps, Videos and More
Books:
What Happened to You? Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing
By Bruce Perry and Oprah Winfrey, Flatiron Books, 2021
No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma & Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model
by Richard C. Schwartz, Sounds True, 2021
The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma
by Bessel van der Kolk, Penguin, 2015
Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma: The Innate Capacity to Transform Overwhelming Experiences
By Peter A. Levine with Anne Frederick, North Atlantic Books, 1997
Trauma and Recovery
By Judith L. Herman, Basic Books/Hachette Book Group, 1992
| Therapy | Description |
|---|---|
| Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT) | ACT aims to help you understand and accept your emotions, detach from negativity, and make changes to align your behavior with your values. |
| Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) | CBT refers to a structured, goal-oriented type of talk therapy. It focuses on identifying and changing distressing thoughts and behavior patterns. The term CBT covers a number of different trauma therapies such as CPT, PE, and EMDR (see below). |
| Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) | In CPT, the patient and therapist examine the patient’s thoughts and beliefs about the trauma. They work together to evaluate if traumatic experiences have impacted thinking in unsupported ways, and the patient can consider new perspectives. |
| Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) | DBT uses a combination of acceptance and change strategies to help patients who struggle with intense emotional reactions. It teaches coping and problem-solving skills to improve relationships and quality of life. |
| Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT) | EFT is a short-term therapeutic approach that helps people improve relationships and manage emotions by building awareness, acceptance, and regulation of emotional responses. |
| Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) | EMDR helps patients process trauma by recalling it while attending to a distracting movement or sound (e.g., finger waving, light, tone). It can reduce the vividness and emotional weight of traumatic memories. |
| Hypnotherapy | Hypnotherapy uses relaxation and focused attention to enter a trance-like state. This opens up receptiveness to suggestions that can positively alter thoughts, feelings, memories, and behaviors. |
| Internal Family Systems (IFS) | IFS helps people understand and heal internal “parts” of themselves, similar to members of a family. Each part has unique roles and intentions, and therapy focuses on bringing harmony among them. |
| Mentalization-Based Therapy (MBT) | MBT helps patients pause and think before reacting to their own feelings or perceived feelings of others, improving self-awareness and interpersonal understanding. |
| Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) | MBSR uses mindfulness meditation techniques to increase awareness and acceptance, reduce judgment, and alleviate stress and emotional distress. |
| Narrative Exposure Therapy (NET) | NET helps individuals re-author their life story through structured storytelling, separating the trauma from their identity and helping them process it more objectively. |
| Prolonged Exposure (PE) | PE gradually exposes patients to trauma-related triggers in a safe, therapeutic environment. Repeated exposure can reduce fear and avoidance behaviors. |
| Psychodynamic Therapy (PT) | PT explores how unconscious processes and past experiences influence current behaviors. It can offer insight but may be less effective for trauma than CBT-based methods. |
| Reconsolidation of Traumatic Memories (RTM) | RTM is a guided visualization technique designed to help patients revisit and reframe traumatic memories, aiming to reduce emotional impact by creating safer emotional associations. |
| Somatic Therapy | Somatic therapy uses mind-body exercises to help patients regain body awareness, release stored tension, and learn to feel safe in their bodies. It may also help with emotional regulation. |
| Transference-Focused Psychotherapy (TFP) | TFP focuses on the relationship between the therapist and patient to explore emotions, relationships, and trauma. It emphasizes real-time interactions to examine past patterns. |
| Written Exposure Therapy (WET) | WET is a short, structured therapy involving writing about trauma over five sessions. It helps reduce distress by helping patients reprocess the trauma and assign new meaning to it. |
| Other | Art therapy, movement therapy, sand therapy, music, yoga, dance, martial arts (e.g., Qigong, Tai chi), neurofeedback using EEG, vagal nerve stimulation, Pilates, cardio, medication. |
PTSD Coach app
Learn more about the app here
Rebound Health app
Rebound Health can help you work through traumatic memories, break free from negative cycles, and understand how trauma affects your mind and body, privately, on your own schedule. Rebound was built by trauma survivors and psychologists. It can be used on its own or with therapy, at any stage.
The cost is $4.99 per week with a Stony Brook discount—scan the QR code below to access it (code: “STONYBROOK”).
Getting Unstuck from PTSD: Using Cognitive Processing Therapy to Guide Your Recovery
by Patricia A. Resick, Shannon Wiltsey Stirman, and Stefanie T. Losavio, Guilford Publications, 2023
Transforming The Living Legacy of Trauma: A Workbook for Survivors and Therapists
by Janina Fisher, PESI, 2021
Trauma Survivors' Strategies for Healing: A Workbook to Help You Grow, Rebuild, and Take Back Your Life
by Elena Welsh, Callisto Publishing, 2018