Cognitive processing therapy essay

The US Department of Veteran Affairs (2018) acknowledges that trauma is a common occurrence in people’s lives. A recent report shows that five or every ten women and 6 of every ten men face trauma at some point in their lives. While women are more susceptible to child sexual abuse and sexual assault, men are more vulnerable to combat, accidents, disasters, physical assault. In this vein, in any given year, approximately eight million individuals suffer PTSD. Evidently, such alarming rates call for empirically supported treatments such as cognitive processing therapy in assisting people in alleviating symptoms and living meaningful and productive lives. For example, a military man may experience fear (primary emotion) in the middle of gunfire and shame (natural emotion) when he interprets his ability to save his colleagues as weakness.

In treating PTSD, CPT emphasizes of fixing stuck points which Chard et al. (2012) describes as thoughts that impede recovery and are as a result of over-accommodation as well as intense secondary and primary emotions. In aiding people to deal with their trauma, the counselor seeks to alter the trauma-related affective elements to become more adaptive. Pre-Therapy Concerns Sessions Overview Eligibility is one of the critical concerns that is considered in the initial stages of cognitive processing therapy. Typically, there are twelve sessions in CPT that are carried out weekly, once or twice. The counseling sessions last for approximately sixty minutes. Clients are required to attend all the meetings and complete the assignments provided for successful outcomes. Unlike other treatment modalities where establishing a therapeutic relationship is the first step in the counseling process, CPT does not prioritize this phase.

Stirman et al. As such, these circumstances cause those who have experienced trauma to interpret the event which consequently elicits additional psychological distress wrongly. In this regard, these authors add that psychoeducation is meant to provide accurate information to trauma survivors by assisting them to integrate new information into existing standpoints or views. Although this process occurs early in the treatment phase, each session allows individuals to gain new perspectives regarding their situation and be able to normalize it. Besides providing verbal information regarding PTSD, counselors can also refer clients to specific books or provide printed handouts. Nevertheless, in doing so, some of the factors that the counselor should consider regarding the printed material are the language, cultural appropriateness, quality, and the risk of insufficient cognitive-emotional integration such that the client is unable to relate the material to his/her own traumatic experience.

The second is the “why” and “how” questions which are developed to help clients to challenge their unquestioned beliefs and attitudes. Third, probing reasons and evidence are questions used to aid clients to examine the real evidence supporting their ideas. Questions about the question is another category whereby the counselor responds to the client’s question with another question. Questioning perspectives entail helping clients to challenge their views by introducing questions concerning alternative aspects. Lastly, analyzing consequences comprises of using questions to help those in therapy to examine the effects of their beliefs and whether they are sensible (Chard et al. One of the predominant factors in this analysis is that CPT reduces PTSD symptoms. Noteworthy, this is a vital factor considering that PTSD symptoms are strongly correlated with disability status.

Sayer at al. (2009) explains that PTSD is a disability by itself since it causes impairments in social, occupational, academic, and physical dynamics of a person’s life. Consequently, these result in more problems such as difficulties retaining employment decreased social interactions, and low academic successes, among others. Consequently, treatment health providers facilitated treatment planning discussions. An analysis of the dataset showed that the self-reported depression and PTSD symptoms reduced throughout the individual and group treatment. However, this finding was more noticeable for symptoms of PTSD which revealed a stronger reduction from pre- to post-treatment compared to symptoms of depression. However, a hierarchical linear modeling analysis revealed that symptom reduction was more pronounced in individual CPT+A whose PTSD scores before and after treatment were twice as large compared to group CPT+A.

Notably, this could be for the reason that in individual therapy, the discussions are more focused and personalized. In this regard, CPT is limited regarding treating disorders as it cannot be used on individual dealing with other issues such as obsessive-compulsive disorder or eating disorders (Stirman et al. Another limitation is that CPT may not be suitable for people who cannot read and write. This type of therapy relies on practice assignments and worksheets like the ABC sheets, Impact Statement, and the Challenging Beliefs Worksheets, among others. Moreover, CPT with written accounts requires clients to document their traumatic experiences. Markedly, this might be challenging for clients who are not capable of reading and writing due to various reasons such as illiteracy, developmental challenges or disabilities (Stirman et al.

The counselor also has to have facilitated and completed a minimum of four individual cases or two groups with positive outcomes. Fifth, during the counseling process, the counselor is required to have used a minimum of one standardized tool each week to assess the client’s progress regarding the improvement of symptoms. The last requirement is that the counselor should submit the stuck point log, case notes, sample worksheets, and PLC scores upon request for the purpose of evaluation. In line with this, the therapist should begin the case consultations within three months after attending the training workshop o become rostered. Nevertheless, exceptions to this rule are in cases of severe illness or injury and maternity leave. N. , & Lanktree, C. B.