Treatment for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
What will therapy with CAMHS involve?
Following your assessment, you and your assessment clinician agreed that treatment for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) would be most helpful for you.
You will have been offered one of these therapies:
- Trauma-focused Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (TF-CBT)
- Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR)
- Family and Systemic Psychotherapy
Sort out your memory
Talking about your traumatic experience and changing the negative thoughts and feelings about the trauma that have stopped you living your life.
Reclaim your life
Helping you to get back to the activities and life that you did and had before the trauma occurred.
You might find therapy for PTSD really hard because it means talking about things that are very upsetting or scary to remember. It's a bit like cleaning a cut on your knee—it might hurt at first, but it helps you heal in the end.
At the start, you might feel worse before you start to feel better, and memories and thoughts might pop up more often for a while. But if you keep going and work hard, things will slowly start to get easier.
During therapy, you will work with your therapist to do things that you have avoided since the trauma. For example, being in cars after a road traffic accident. It takes real courage to face these things you are frightened of. The love and support from parents, carers, friends and family can make all the difference in the world.
Trauma-focused Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (TF-CBT)
CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) is a talking therapy which helps you to understand how your thoughts, behaviour and feelings are connected. It will help you to learn how to think and act in ways that will improve how you feel, and reduce your PTSD symptoms and reactions.
How many sessions will I have?
- You will have up to 15 sessions for PTSD or up to 20 sessions for complex PTSD.
- These will be one-to-one sessions.
- Your sessions may be in-person or online.
- Sessions will be adapted to suit your age and needs.
- Your parents and carers may join some or all sessions.
Working with your clinician
CBT involves working collaboratively with your clinician. This work may involve experiments to challenge your thinking and behaviours and testing these out both in sessions and between sessions. You will have regular reviews with your clinician to make sure this approach is working for you.
UK Trauma Council: What is trauma-focused CBT?
It explains what TF-CBT is. This video is 2 minutes 49 seconds.
The therapies we offer in CAMHS have been tested and proven to help. You have been offered TF-CBT as this is the best way to know how to help children and young people with PTSD.
Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR)
EMDR helps you to re-process your traumatic memories. You will recall the traumatic memories while making rhythmic eye movements. You can also listen to sounds alternating in each ear or have a clinician tap your hands alternately.
It can help because it helps your brain to process memories how they are when you are asleep.
This can stop the memories feeling so overwhelming and help you to manage your emotional reactions when you think about the traumatic event.
How many sessions will I have?
- You will have up to 12 sessions for PTSD.
- These will be one-to-one sessions.
- Your sessions will be in-person.
- Sessions will be adapted to suit your age and needs.
- Your parents and carers may join some or all sessions.
EMDR Association UK: Animation to explain EMDR therapy to children
This video explains what EMDR is, it may be more suitable for younger children. This video is 2 minutes 42 seconds.
EMDR Association UK: How EMDR can help bad memories
This video explains how EMDR can help with bad memories. This video is 1 minutes 33 seconds.
EMDR Association UK: Animation to explain EMDR therapy and trauma to adults
This video explains what EMDR is, it may be more suitable for teenagers, parents and carers. This video is 3 minutes 02 seconds.
We will also listen to what you like and need, sometimes EMDR may work better for you.
Family and Systemic Psychotherapy
Within family & systemic psychotherapy sessions you will be supported to explore your relationships within your family (who ever your family is to you, including friends) and the possible effects the PTSD is having within those relationships. psychotherapist can explore together.
Some times patterns are created around PTSD and our family/friends can support us to notice and challenge patterns that no longer work for us. Exploring the shared narrative in families regarding the PTSD is also usually helpful for families to support each other and repair/rebuild their communication around this.
Looking at wider support networks and how to continue positive changes is also what your family & systemic psychotherapist can explore together.
How many sessions will I have?
- You will have up to 12 sessions.
- These will be sessions with your family and carers.
- Your sessions may be in-person or online.
- Sessions will be adapted to suit your age and needs.
We will also listen to what you like and need, sometimes Family & Systemic Psychotherapy may work better for you.
In Family and Systemic Psychotherapy, 'Family' refers to anyone you care about and who cares about you. It doesn't just mean someone who is biologically related to you, so 'Family' also refers to:
- Step-parents
- Step-siblings
- Carers
- Adopted & foster siblings.
Read more information about this on the Association for Family Therapy and Systemic Practice.
How do I tell my therapist how therapy is going?
We will keep checking together to make sure your therapy is helping you. These are called review sessions, we will do a review session after every 6 therapy sessions.
If you feel it’s not working, you can tell your clinician in your review sessions. But you can also do this any other time that you would like to.
Your parents and carers might join these sessions, if you and your clinician think that is a good idea. You can tell your clinician if you don't want your parents and carers in your review sessions.
During your review sessions, you and your clinician will think about:
- How therapy is going
- Your goals and if therapy is helping you work towards these goals
- If you need support from other services. This could be services within CAMHS or outside of CAMHS.
Together you will:
- Update your care and/or safety plans
- Update your risk assessment
- Complete questionnaires to track your progress, you can read more about this on our Tracking Your Progress page
- Plan next steps e.g. for therapy, starting to a different therapy, moving on from CAMHS.
Sometimes reviewing how your therapy is going involves your clinician talking to other clinicians in their team. This will happen in Multi-Disciplinary Team (MDT) meetings.
MDT meetings help your clinician think about you and your difficulties in different ways and what your next step might be. Your clinician will always share what was discussed in MDT meetings with you and use this to plan your next steps with you.
Requesting reasonable adjustments
We encourage you or your parents and carers to talk to your clinician about adjustments you may need. We will make adaptations to support you to engage with the therapy we offer. Below are some examples of adjustments you could ask for:
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Information to be shared in different formats or languages
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Breaks during the session so that you can move around
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Using fidget toys and turning off bright lights
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Using visuals or writing down your thoughts
More information about my therapy
Children, Young People, Parents and Carers
This website explains:
- What CBT is?
- What CBT treats?
- What CBT sessions are likes?
- How can I get CBT?
- Can I do CBT by myself?
- What if CBT doesn't work for me?
This website explains:
- What is active monitoring?
- What is TF-CBT?
- What is EMDR?
- Medication for PTSD
- Other PTSD treatments
- How to get treatment for PTSD
Young Minds - Talking therapies
This website explains:
- What is talking therapy?
- Common types of talking therapy
- What happens during therapy sessions?
- How to make the most of therapy sessions?
- How to access talking therapy
- Finding the right therapist for you
Parents and Carers
Young Minds - Counselling and therapy
This website link may be helpful for parents and carers to understand:
- How can I get counselling or therapy for my child?
- Finding the right support for your child
- Common types of talking therapies
- Talking to your child about counselling and therapy
- Supporting your child during counselling or therapy
- Looking after yourself
- Useful helplines and websites
Children, Young People, Parents and Carers
This website explains:
- What is active monitoring?
- What is TF-CBT?
- What is EMDR?
- Medication for PTSD
- Other PTSD treatments
- How to get treatment for PTSD
EMDR Association - For Children and Adolescents
This website explains:
- What is PTSD?
- PTSD and EMDR
- How does EMDR work?
This website explains:
- What is EMDR?
- How does EMDR work?
- How is EMDR effective?
- Who can EMDR help?
Children, Young People, Parents and Carers
Association for Family and Systemic Psychotherapy
This website explains:
- What is Family and Systemic Psychotherapy?
- Who is Family and Systemic Psychotherapy for?
- What difficulties can Family and Systemic Psychotherapy help?
- Frequently Asked Questions
This website explains:
- What is Psychotherapy?
- Types of Psychotherapy
- How does Psychotherapy work?
- Frequently Asked Questions
Click the link below to find information about NICE guidelines and recommendations for PTSD.
This document from Anna Freud explains why we offer the therapies we do and the evidence that supports their use. This document explains:
- What is PTSD?
- How can I get help?
- When and why you will be offered different therapies?
- The evidence behind each type of therapy for treating PTSD