Trauma Focused CBT

There are many types of therapy for trauma. According to The National Child Traumatic Stress Network, “TF-CBT has proved successful with children (ages 3 to 18) who have significant emotional problems (e.g., symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, fear, anxiety, or depression) related to traumatic life events. It can be used with children and adolescents who have experienced a single trauma or multiple traumas” (2012). The treatment is particularly sensitive to the unique problems of youth with post-traumatic stress and mood disorders resulting from sexual abuse, physical abuse, violence, and/or grief.

According to PsychCentral, “TF-CBT is one specific kind of cognitive behavioral therapy. A significant difference between the two is that, unlike regular CBT, trauma-focused CBT focuses specifically on the impacts of trauma. While TF-CBT was specifically developed to help children and adolescents after trauma, regular CBT is for people of all ages” (Ferguson, 2021). Many studies have been conducted evaluating the efficacy of TF-CBT vs. other tested therapy models and have shown that TF-CBT resulted in significantly greater gains for children and parents. Children participating in TF-CBT show a wide range of improvements, including decreases in PTSD symptoms, depression, anxiety, behavior problems, shame, cognitive distortions, and relationship difficulties. Research also demonstrates a positive treatment response for parents, who experience reductions in their own emotional distress and “significant improvement in their personal depressive symptoms and this mediated significantly greater improvement in children’s depressive symptoms” (Holt T, Jensen TK, Wentzel-Larsen T).

TF-CBT is a short-term manualized family-based evidence-based treatment for children and adolescents impacted by trauma and their parents or caregivers that lasts anywhere from 8 to 25 sessions. The therapy includes three treatment phases: stabilization, trauma narration and processing, and integration/consolidation. Most sessions last approximately 60 minutes, with the child and parent separately seeing the therapist for about 30 minutes each. There are some joint sessions in TF-CBT, particularly later in the treatment when the child shares his or her trauma narrative with the parent. The full treatment is usually completed within 4-6 months.

Some children may benefit from additional services once the trauma impact has been resolved. Often, when a child is traumatized, there are other comorbid conditions that accompany the trauma. For example, a child may have anxiety, depression, substance use, family conflict, and/or problems in school in addition to the trauma. After the impact of the trauma has been resolved, some patients may benefit from continued psychotherapy and medication management.