Evidence-Based Treatment Options for PTSD
After trauma, you may avoid certain places, memories, conversations, or activities. You may feel constantly alert, experience unwanted memories, or struggle with beliefs about yourself and the world that did not exist before the trauma.
Cognitive Processing Therapy and Prolonged Exposure are two evidence-based treatments designed specifically for post-traumatic stress disorder. They approach PTSD differently, but both can help people process trauma and reduce the ways it controls daily life.
Wings Counseling Center provides individualized trauma care for adults throughout San Diego County, with in-person therapy at our Carlsbad and La Mesa offices and virtual services for eligible clients. Our team can help you compare CPT, PE, and other treatment options based on your symptoms, needs, and preferences.
Schedule a Consultation
You do not need to know whether you have PTSD or which therapy you need before contacting us. Reach out to Wings Counseling Center to discuss what you are experiencing and learn about your options.
What Are CPT and Prolonged Exposure?
Cognitive Processing Therapy, or CPT, focuses on how trauma can change the way you think about yourself, other people, and the world. It helps you identify trauma-related beliefs, often called stuck points, and develop more accurate and balanced ways of understanding what happened.
The VA National Center for PTSD describes Prolonged Exposure, or PE, as gradually approaching safe trauma-related memories, feelings, and situations that you have been avoiding. This structured process can help you learn that remembering the trauma is not the same as being in danger now.
How Does Cognitive Processing Therapy Work?
Trauma can affect beliefs about safety, trust, power, control, self-esteem, responsibility, and intimacy. You may find yourself thinking, “It was my fault,” “I am not safe,” or “I should have prevented it.”
During CPT, the therapist helps you identify beliefs that continue to create distress or interfere with recovery. You learn skills for examining whether those beliefs are complete, accurate, and helpful. The purpose is not to convince you that the trauma was unimportant or to erase what happened. It is to separate the facts of the event from conclusions that may have developed around it.
The VA National Center for PTSD describes CPT as structured and often including worksheets or practice between sessions. Your therapist will explain the format and tailor the pace to your needs and progress.
How Does Prolonged Exposure Work?
Avoidance can provide temporary relief after trauma, but over time it may make life smaller and reinforce the belief that reminders are dangerous. PE addresses that pattern through gradual, planned exposure to safe memories and situations.
In-vivo exposure involves approaching safe activities, places, conversations, or objects that you have avoided because they remind you of the trauma. Imaginal exposure involves revisiting and talking through trauma memories with your therapist.
The VA National Center for PTSD describes PE as collaborative and gradual. A therapist trained in PE will explain the process, help you develop manageable steps, monitor your response, and support you in practicing between sessions. The pace and length of PE are tailored to your needs and progress.
Who May Benefit From CPT or PE?
CPT and PE are designed to treat PTSD. PTSD can develop after combat, assault, abuse, accidents, disasters, traumatic loss, medical events, or other experiences involving actual or threatened harm.
The National Institute of Mental Health notes that PTSD symptoms may include intrusive memories, nightmares, avoidance, anxiety, feeling constantly on guard, sleep problems, difficulty concentrating, guilt, shame, emotional numbness, negative beliefs, irritability, or feeling disconnected from others.
You do not need to experience every symptom or diagnose yourself before reaching out. A qualified clinician can evaluate whether PTSD, another trauma-related concern, or a different condition may be contributing to what you are experiencing.
Military service, emergency response, and repeated exposure to crisis can create distinct forms of trauma. Concerns may include combat experiences, military sexual trauma, moral injury, grief, repeated exposure to suffering, or difficulty adjusting after leaving a high-intensity role.
CPT and PE have been studied extensively with military and veteran populations, as well as civilians with different types of trauma. When appropriate, treatment can help you address trauma-related beliefs, avoidance, and reminders while respecting your experiences and values. The team at Wings Counseling Center has the cultural competence to support service men and women as well as first responders.
What Can I Expect at Wings Counseling Center?
Your first appointments will focus on understanding your history, symptoms, goals, preferences, and what you hope to change. Your therapist will explain appropriate treatment options and answer questions before beginning structured trauma work.
If CPT is recommended, treatment may focus on identifying stuck points, understanding how trauma affected your beliefs, examining guilt or self-blame, and developing more balanced interpretations.
If PE is recommended, treatment may focus on understanding avoidance, developing a gradual plan, approaching safe reminders, processing trauma memories, and building confidence in your ability to tolerate difficult emotions.
You will not be asked to disclose everything immediately. Trauma treatment should proceed within a clear plan and a therapeutic relationship where you understand what is happening and why.
Why Choose Wings Counseling Center?
Choosing trauma treatment is personal. Wings Counseling Center offers compassionate, individualized care for children, teens, and adults, including specialized experience with military personnel, veterans, first responders, and civilians affected by trauma.
Our clinicians take time to understand your circumstances before recommending a treatment. In-person and virtual options may be available depending on your clinical needs, location, privacy, and treatment goals.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CPT or PE better for PTSD?
Both have strong research support. The best fit depends on your preferences, symptoms, goals, treatment history, and circumstances.
Will I have to talk about everything that happened?
CPT focuses primarily on trauma-related beliefs and does not necessarily require a detailed verbal account. PE includes structured discussion of trauma memories after preparation and with therapist support.
Can these treatments be provided virtually?
CPT and PE can be delivered through telehealth when clinically appropriate. Your therapist can help determine whether virtual treatment is suitable for you.
Are CPT and PE only for military veterans?
No. Both treatments have been studied with civilian and military populations and with people who experienced many types of trauma.
Take the Next Step
Living with the effects of trauma can be exhausting, but you do not have to decide on a treatment alone. Contact Wings Counseling Center to discuss your concerns and learn whether CPT, PE, or another approach may be appropriate.