Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) can develop after trauma with individuals describing re-experiencing memories or feelings from the trauma, a heightended sense of threat and vigilance for danger,  avoiding reminders of the trauma, and changes in your beliefs about yourself, the world, other people, and your future.

 

Trauma Focused Cognitive Behavioural Therapy can help you to gain control of the overwhelming feelings and changing the negative way you think about the experience. This involves firstly practising ways to manage the overwhelming feelings of PTSD. These include grounding techniques and methods of relaxation.

 

Next we work with the trauma memories to process them by talking about them. During this process you will be helped to cope with the distress you feel, while identifying any unhelpful thoughts or misrepresentations you have about the experience.

 

Following on from processing we will look at how you made sense of the trauma and help you to alter the negative way you think about your experience (such as blame for what happened or fear that it may happen again). We will also work towards gradually restarting any activities you have avoided since the experience, such as driving a car after an accident.