Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a disabling mental health issue for which a victim must consult a mental health professional. A traumatic life event such as military combat or losing a loved one may result in PTSD. Hence, a victim must get this treated. Different mental health professionals use various treatments like EMDR, PE, CBT, etc to cure PTSD. However, one of the major challenges that an individual faces is how to find a good therapist for PTSD?
Well, several credible sources help you find a good PTSD therapist or a mental health care provider. These sources help you find the best fit type of mental health professional.
The first few steps that you can take is to ask your family doctor for a referral. Similarly, you can even ask your friends or people close to your family for recommendations. And if you have a health insurance cover like Medicare or Medicaid, you should ask for a recommendation from your insurance provider.
This is because your insurance provider would give you a list of therapists to whom your insurance coverage may apply.
In this article, we will help you with several sources that you can refer to for locating a good PTSD therapist. Further, we’ll also help you with things that you should consider when looking for a PTSD therapist.
Note: Finding a PTSD therapist might take some time. This is because you need to think and evaluate how to locate the best fit therapist. But if you are experiencing a crisis and need immediate help, here are some hotline numbers that you can dial to seek help.
National Youth Crisis Hotline: 800-442-HOPE
The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255
National Domestic Violence/Child Abuse/Sexual Abuse: 1-800-799-SAFE
How Do I Find a Therapist for PTSD?
There are a host of ways through which you can locate a therapist for PTSD. Good PTSD therapists hail from different disciplines, have experience working in different settings, use a variety of treatment techniques, and have sound experience.
However, there are certain things that you must keep in mind while searching for a PTSD therapist.
Things to Remember
1. Medical Professional’s Education and Years of Experience
Since there are different types of mental health professionals, they have different areas of expertise, credentials, and experience. Thus, you must check their educational background, years of experience, credentials, and area of expertise before choosing a PTSD therapist.
2. Treatments Used for PTSD
Make sure you look for a mental therapist who concentrates on using evidence-based treatments for PTSD. These may include psychotherapies like Prolonged Exposure (PE), Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT), Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), and PTSD medications that include antidepressants like SSRIs and SNRIs.
3. Insurance and Fees
You should also consider the type of insurance your mental health care provider accepts. This will help you understand whether your mental health care provider will accept insurance cover and to what extent. Also, it will help you know the amount you have to pay out of your pocket (in part or in full) and the overall cost of the treatment.
4. Different Types of Therapists
Many of us do not understand which mental health professional to consult, especially if we are first-timers. There are a variety of mental health care professionals who hold different credentials, licenses, educational degrees, and training. They can also offer different services based on their area of expertise. You can consider visiting one of the mental health care providers based on your need mentioned in the section below.
5. Validation of Feelings
The first step towards successful treatment is to open up about your issues, feelings, and experiences with the mental health professional. Therefore, seeking PTSD treatment would be of no use if you do not share comfort with your therapist. Now, there are several things you can consider here. For instance, whether you would want to meet the therapist in person or whether online therapy is more convenient for you. Similarly, you may consider the gender of the mental health professional as per your comfort.
Also, one-on-one therapy is one thing that works best for most individuals. This is because they feel safe disclosing trauma-related feelings. As a result, they share a trusting relationship with their therapist.
Thus, observe closely your therapist’s personal capabilities. These may include his intuition, perceptions, and the extent to which he can understand your unsaid things. You need to see if the therapist is really interested to hear your story and the issues you are facing. Check if you feel validated.
6. Check for Collaboration Between You and Your Therapist
Another important criterion for choosing a therapist is to see if he empowers you in place of forcing his treatment on you.
Thus, you and your therapist need to work together as partners. This involves sharing responsibility, expertise, as well as trauma-related perspective. The most important part of PTSD treatment is that both parties need to work together and participate actively. This is because the therapist may be an expert in his field. However, it is you, the PTSD survivor, who will tell him about what you feel and go through. Thus, check whether the therapist offers you things like respect, hope, connection, and information, which are the pillars of your healing relationship.
Once you are clear with the above things, the next step is to refer to the right sources that help you locate credible mental health care providers.
Finding a PTSD Therapist
You can adopt various means to locate a suitable mental health care provider.
1. Searching for PTSD Therapist Online
There are several credible online platforms that can help you find a mental health professional for PTSD treatment.
a) Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA)
ADAA is an international non-profit organization that is a credible online resource for treating, preventing, and educating about mental health disorders. These include anxiety, depression, obsessive-compulsive, traumatic disorders.
ADAA has its own therapist directory that has listed licensed mental health care professionals. The mental health care providers include counselors, psychologists, psychiatrists, clinical social workers, and other professionals. These are specialists of mental disorders like anxiety, depression, PTSD, OCD, and other linked mental health issues. Further, all the specialists listed in the directory are professional members of ADAA. ADAA selects these specialists.
Note that ADDA itself is only an online platform that educates, lists mental health care providers, and provides mental health research. That is, it serves you with information that helps you reach credible mental health professionals and make informed decisions. It does not provide clinical treatment, advice, or care of its own.
b) American Psychological Association (APA)
APA is one of the principal scientific and professional organizations that represents psychology in the United States of America. Its members include doctoral-level psychologists who contribute in various sectors. These include research academics, schools, hospitals, prisons, and practitioners.
The APA psychologist locator helps you to find a licensed psychologist. All you need to do is simply fill in the name or the expertise of the health care professional and your city/state zip code.
These professionals specialize in treating various mental health issues. You can search for a mental health care provider based on several criteria. These include telemental health, treatments provided, languages spoken, insurance accepted, etc
c) EMDR International Association (EMDRIA)
EMDRIA is a professional organization that has professionals trained in EMDR therapy as its members. Apart from listing profiles of the EMDR specialists, EMDRIA provides clinical information on EMDR therapy and numerous other resources for the professionals.
Much like other platforms mentioned above, EMDRIA has an EMDR therapist directory. This contains a list of EMDR specialists registered on the platform with their details like name, specialty, language, contact details, etc.
Accordingly, you can search for an EMDR specialist based on parameters like name, location, specialty, language, insurance, population served, etc.
d) Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA)
SAMHSA is an association that comes under the US Department of Health and Human Services. This agency makes information, research, and services associated with substance abuse and mental disorders more easily available to people.
SAMHSA has its own therapist locator called Behavioral Health Treatment Services Locator. You can use various filters to narrow your search and find a therapist that is the best fit for your mental health issue. For instance, you can sort by city, zip code, facility name, facility address, phone number, state, county, distance, services provided, etc. The locator provides you with complete details of the mental care provider like name, address, contact details, website, services offered, etc.
e) International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies (ISTSS) Clinician Directory
ISTSS is a society that is devoted to providing information about the impact of trauma. It is a platform that shares research about policies and programs that help in reducing stressors that result in trauma. In addition to this, ISTSS provides a forum where researchers can share their research, strategies, and policy in respect of trauma. This platform brings psychologists, psychiatrists, counselors, nurses, social workers, etc together from around the world.
ISTSS has its own clinician directory which lists licensed mental health care providers. You can choose from various types of mental health care providers by applying various filters. These include zip or postal code, state, city, last name, specialty, gender, languages spoken, etc.
f) Sidran Institute Help Desk
Sidran Institute is a non-profit organization that enables people to understand, treat, and recover from traumatic stress including PTSD. It also helps people to know and deal with dissociative disorders and co-occurring issues like suicidality, addictions, self-injury, etc.
It is a community of people who are impacted by the effects of trauma. Accordingly, it includes adolescents, adults, mental health, crisis, public professionals, schools, support networks, and others.
Sidran Institute offers a Help Desk that helps you locate a mental health care professional near you, mental health care centers across the country, and organizations devoted to survivor groups.
g) Psychology Today
Psychology Today is one of the leading mental health online resources across the world. It has a ‘Find a Therapist’ locator that helps you to find a mental health professional that fits your needs. You can fill in the zip code, city, or name of the therapist in the search bar and apply various filters. These include teletherapy, treatment centers, support groups, etc.
2. Finding a PTSD Therapist Via Phone
Apart from these online platforms, you can also approach a mental care provider by phone. You can contact the professionals through the hotline numbers mentioned above.
Some of the other hotline numbers include:
In addition to these, you can check mental health services in the phone book. Similarly, you can look in the ‘County Government Offices’ section in the Government pages and search ‘Health Services (Dept. of)’ or ‘Department of Health Services. You’ll see ‘Behavioral Health’ or ‘Mental Health’ listed there.
Likewise, you also have mental health care providers in the yellow pages. These are listed under ‘behavioral health’ ‘psychologists’, ‘mental health’, etc.
3. Locating PTSD Therapist for Veterans
The mental health care needs of veterans including PTSD treatment are different from others. That’s why there are different sets of treatment choices available for them.
For instance, there are VA Medical Centers and various VA clinics that offer PTSD treatment and are under the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. This VA locator helps you find out mental health professionals for veterans using various criteria. These include your location, facility type, and service type.
Similarly, there are some special programs offered by VA centers for PTSD. You can go for the VA PTSD Program Locator to search for a VA PTSD program.
Then, there are VET centers that offer to counsel veterans and their families post-war. You can look for a VET center near you to seek such counseling.
To know more about treatment and programs available for veterans, check Help for Veterans.
What kind of Therapist Should I See for PTSD?
Typically, the terms ‘counselors’ or ‘therapists’ are terms that are generic and do not fall under any regulation. Therefore, these terms are typically used to refer to any kind of mental health care provider.
In fact, these terms can be used by anyone who is offering mental health treatment with no need for some specialized training.
Therefore, it is important to check the educational backgrounds of mental health care providers you get associated with. The following are the types of mental health care professionals you can approach for PTSD treatment.
1. Psychologists
We consider people who are Ph.D.’s as psychologists. But this is certainly not the case. People who complete a minimum of four years of post-graduation are Doctors of Education Ed.D, Psychology (Psy.D.), and Philosophy (Ph.D.). However, only those who are given licenses can be called psychologists.
The licensed clinical psychologists have special training in evaluating the client to work out the mental health issue the person is going through and provide necessary treatment.
That’s why one should not assume all Ph.D. holders as psychologists. It may be the case that some of them may have degrees in academics that are not related to therapy in any way. However, they may still decide to practice therapy without any license or professional training.
2. Marriage and Family Therapists and Professional Counselors (LMFT)
LMFTs and professional counselors (LPCs) typically attend two years of graduate school and have at least a master’s degree out of the following:
- Master of Science (M.S.)
- The Master of Arts (M.A.)
- Master of Education (M.Ed.)
Apart from this, LMFTs have special training in family therapy. Also, professional counselors have a wide range of general training in counseling and psychology. The professional counselors typically include Certified Addiction Counselors (i.e. C.A.C. I, II, and III ). Further, it is not necessary that a counselor will have a master’s degree.
They are mental health professionals who offer supportive therapy and concentrate on behavioral challenges that are not categorized as mental illness. Also, counseling is not as rigorous as psychotherapy.
3. Social Workers
These are clinical social workers (CSW) who have attended two years of graduate school and hold at least a master’s degree. Some may even earn doctoral degrees and have varied credentials. A few of the common ones include:
- Bachelor’s of Social Work (B.SW.)
- Master’s of Social Work (M.SW.)
- Academy of Certified Social Workers (A.C.SW.)
- Diplomate of Clinical Social Work (D.C.S.W)
One thing that you must remember here is that all social workers, except a few, have an ‘L’ in front of their degree. For example, L.B.S.W.
4. Other Types of Professionals
There are other mental health care providers who extend mental health care services to people. These include:
(a) Psychiatrists
Psychiatrists, like any other physician, are medical doctors (M.D.s). They earn their medical degree and undertake a specialty course in psychiatry that lasts for four years. Since they are medical doctors, they charge the highest fee among all the mental health care professionals.
They prescribe medication and do not use talk therapy frequently. Further, it is not necessary for you to refer to a psychiatrist for PTSD or any other trauma-related disorder. However, you may do so if you experience complicated or co-occurring medical conditions.
Typically, psychiatrists work with other non-medical mental health professionals for treating and prescribing medication to people with trauma disorders.
(b) Psychiatric Nurses and Nurse Practitioners
These are mental health care providers who have the following credentials.
- Registered Nurse (R.N.)
- Registered nurse Practitioner (R.N.P.)
- Master’s of Science in Nursing (M.S.N.)
(c) Hypnotherapists
Hypnotherapists are skilled professionals who put trauma survivors in a state of trance. This is done to help survivors use their subconscious minds and alter their behavior or thought processes.
Hypnotherapists, while guiding survivors to undertake some exercises, enable them to reach their subconscious state. This is to encourage the survivors to change their negative thoughts and do away with unwanted habits or addictions.
(d) Pastoral Counselors
They are clergymen and women who have credentials like Master of Divinity (M.Div.) and Doctor of Theology (Th.D.). In addition to this, they also have supplementary training in therapy along with a degree from a seminary.
Can Therapy Make PTSD Worse?
Prolonged Exposure (PE) and Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) are two of the most exhaustively researched and evidence-based CBT treatments for PTSD. That’s why these are the most commonly used treatments for PTSD across various settings and facilities.
Despite being effective, these cognitive-behavioral treatments remain underutilized. This is in part because of the worries of both the researchers and clinicians in respect of using these treatments. The concerns that treatments like PE and CPT result in intensifying or making PTSD symptoms worse or increased dropouts have long been in the discussion.
Now, there have been various studies on whether treatments like PE and CPT result in increased patient dropouts or make PTSD symptoms worse. A few studies suggest that worsening PTSD symptoms or increased dropout as a result of PE and CPT are myths. And this is what is preventing clinicians from using these treatments for PTSD.
However, there are studies that suggest either way. For instance, research undertaken by Kilpatrick and Best claimed that repeated exposure to a traumatic event may result in increased anxiety and dropouts. This specifically applies to people who have experienced sexual assault.
Similarly, victims of childhood sexual abuse may find difficulties with exposure therapy leading to dropout.
In addition to this, a study by Pitman et al. came out with case studies that revealed that EMDR could be better accepted and tolerated by patients and therapists. However, there was no solid reasoning behind it.
Accordingly, it is important to know in what cases does exposure to past trauma lead to intensifying PTSD symptoms and increased dropouts.
When Exposure Therapy May Not Be Ideal?
Revisiting, writing, or talking about past trauma has proved effective with many PTSD patients. In fact, Prolonged Exposure (PE) and CPT are the most commonly used psychotherapies to treat PTSD.
This is because these make the survivor revisit trauma and encounter or feel the process. Such an exposure results in:
- awareness and expressing one’s feelings which helps in healing
- building of trust and faith with the therapist that helps survivors overcome shame or guilt. This is because they feel comfortable coming out with their feelings.
- such opening up results in increased positive thinking and helps overcome anxiety and depression
- survivors understanding and becoming conscious of what happened and why which reduces distress.
- survivor talking his feelings out that helps in healing
However, this may not work in each case.
Revisiting the Past Trauma Can Be a Problem
Despite exposure therapies like PE and CPT having been proved effective in treating PTSD symptoms, these may not be useful in some cases. In fact, these may result in even increasing or worsening PTSD symptoms.
In some cases, the past traumatic event may be too negative or difficult to deal with. That’s why revisiting the trauma may add to the problem. One may feel impaired despite the therapy.
Therefore, it is important to know that avoiding re-exposure to trauma can in some cases prove effective. There are PTSD survivors who chose to focus on other well-balanced, healthy actions instead of going back in time and re-experiencing trauma.
They take up activities like painting, exercising, etc that prove therapeutic for them. Let’s consider the claims made by veteran David J. Morris who is a trauma survivor in his article. He holds that exposure therapy can make things worse, as was the case with him. And that’s what made him drop out of the therapy before completing the sessions.
Likewise, he mentions the study undertaken by a Harvard Medical School psychiatry professor Roger K. Pitman. This was a study on Vietnam veterans who faced some complications post the PE therapy. These included experiencing suicidal thoughts, panic attacks, or depressive moods.
How Do You Get Diagnosed With PTSD Online?
You can take our PTSD online test to know about the PTSD symptoms that may be going through. You can then share these PTSD symptoms with your mental health care provider so that he can undertake a proper diagnosis.
To locate a therapist who can undertake proper diagnosis, you can visit online-therapy.com and register yourself for receiving online treatment.
How Long Does Therapy Take for PTSD?
One of the other typical questions asked with respect to PTSD therapy is ‘How many therapy sessions are needed for PTSD?’ Well, the time period for therapy would vary from case to case, given varying degrees of symptom severity. It is important to note here that both the type and length of therapy must be aligned with the person’s nature and severity of symptoms he’s going through.
For instance, intense PTSD symptoms require more time for treatment than mild symptoms. Likewise, what therapy is your mental health care provider using for treatment also decides the time duration? Similarly, Let’s have a look at the usual time it takes for each of the different therapies used for PTSD.
1. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
CBT is one of the commonly used psychotherapies for treating CBT. As a PTSD survivor, whatever skills you learn during CBT sessions must be practiced repeatedly for symptom improvement. As your therapist focuses on the traumatic event, the idea is to make you identify, understand and alter your thinking and behavior patterns.
Although it may vary from case to case, the CBT usually takes place over 12 to 16 weeks.
2. Prolonged Exposure Therapy (PE)
In Prolonged Exposure, you are asked to revisit the traumatic event. The aim is to face the feelings and trauma memory in a safe, controlled environment repeatedly. This is to help the PTSD survivor overcome trauma-related fear.
PE stretches over 3 months where the sessions are conducted on a weekly basis. Further, each session lasts between 60-120 minutes.
3. Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT)
In CPT, again the focus is to help the PTSD survivor challenge the current negative thoughts related to trauma. The aim is to enable the survivor to develop a new understanding of the traumatic event. This is to enable the survivor to reduce the negative impact of trauma on his routine functioning.
CPT typically lasts for 12 sessions.
4. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
EMDR is unlike the other psychotherapies where changing the emotions related to the trauma is the focus. In this, the trauma-related memory of the PTSD survivors is the focus. The mental health care providers aim to change the trauma-related memory that is understood and stored in the survivor’s brain. Further, survivors are also asked to simultaneously face bilateral stimulations like eye movement. This helps in reducing the emotions related to trauma.
EMDR is provided once or twice a week and typically contains 6-12 sessions.
Why Do Clients Smile When Talking About Trauma?
It is a common practice amongst PTSD survivors to smile when talking about their trauma in the therapy sessions. Smiling certainly is not a gesture they should be showing while narrating the painful, horrifying, abusive childhood experiences.
Yet, you would find trauma survivors laughing and smiling as they come out with those humiliating experiences they had. This mismatch between emotions and their painful stories can actually provide insights about so much about the survivors.
1. It May be a Strategy To Reduce the Trauma Impact
Traumatic events like childhood abuse or losing a loved one bring feelings of humiliation, hate, disgust, and sadness. Thus, to not go into the zone of these feelings, many survivors laugh or smile as they narrate their painful traumatic experiences.
This helps them to keep such feelings at bay. And this is what helps them to reduce the pain associated with revisiting the traumatic memory.
2. Smiling While Narrating Traumatic Experience Can Be a Sign of Feelings of Shame and Disgust
Trauma survivors smiling as they share their painful stories can also be a sign of them feeling shameful or disgusted. It requires a brave heart to come out with experiences that are marked by shame and humiliation.
So smiling may be a way to tell the therapist the shame and embarrassment the survivors are going through. Also, it helps the survivors to not go into the deeper analysis of the traumatic memory.
3. It May Be Used as a Defense Strategy to Avoid Pain
Another thing can be that laughter may help the survivors avoid trauma-related pain. Survivors have the understanding that once the feelings like shame, disgust, anger, hate, etc are processed, they will be possessed by these emotions.
And when such emotions would overpower them, they feel they have no control over their pain. So laughing while narrating their traumatic experience can help them to avoid pain.
4. Laughter Can Indicate Towards Issues With Expressing Certain Feelings Since Childhood
Laughing can also be a sign that there were certain feelings that the survivor was not allowed to express during childhood. For example, many families prevent children from expressing feelings of anger and frustration. In fact, they are looked down upon by elders in the family if children express these feelings.
So laughing or smiling as they express their painful stories can also be an indicator of feelings that they were not permitted to express.
5. It May Reveal Self-Esteem Issues
Laughing while sharing their painful experience may also show a lack of self-worth in survivors. Since the survivor may think he or she is not worthy enough, he may smile to express that he/she is not that important that his painful issue must be discussed.
6. Smiling is a Sign That the Survivor Does Not Know How to Emote Negative Feelings
Finally, it may be an indicator that the survivor is not equipped to express his negative feelings. Many trauma survivors are scared to bring out their negative feelings. This is because they fear how they will react and deal with these negative feelings. Therefore, smiling is a way to deal with such a situation.
This is where the therapists need to understand that the survivors first need to be equipped with emoting negative feelings. Only then can they go ahead with therapy.
Can PTSD Be Cured?
PTSD is no doubt a complex mental health issue. As such, there is no particular cure for PTSD. Yet, there are various treatments available that help in reducing PTSD symptoms.
Mental health care providers use both psychotherapy and medication to treat PTSD. But there is no doubt that it is challenging to treat PTSD.
This is because PTSD survivors repeatedly experience intrusive, trauma-related memories long after the traumatic event. They experience negative alterations in their cognitive abilities and in many cases even witness revictimization.
Not only this, many are at the risk of suffering comorbidities like substance abuse, anxiety, depression, etc.
But, psychotherapies like CBT, CPT, PE, EMDR, etc, and antidepressants have been proved useful in treating PTSD symptoms.
What Therapy is Best for Trauma?
There exist a few therapies that are highly recommended for treating PTSD. All of these therapies are different forms of CBT. These therapies are some of the most widely used and are considered best for trauma. Further, the following section will also help you to understand what happens in therapy for PTSD.
1. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
CBT is a type of psychotherapy where the therapist and the trauma survivor come together to identify and alter unhelpful thought patterns. CBT works by the therapist motivating the survivors to re-analyze their thought patterns and assumptions.
This is to help them recognize unpleasant thought patterns and shift towards more positive and balanced thoughts. Unpleasant thoughts, also called distortions, typically include negative thinking, always thinking of disastrous outcomes, etc which impair routine functioning.
In this, the survivor is exposed to the past traumatic event and reminded of the feelings or emotions associated with it. The aim is to help the trauma survivor reduce avoidance behavior and maladaptive associations with the traumatic event.
Accordingly, some of the important CBT principles involve focusing on the present problem and setting goals, educating the survivor to be his own therapist, and being structured and time-bound.
2. Prolonged Exposure (PE)
This is a type of CBT where the trauma survivors are taught to slowly approach their memories, events, and feelings related to trauma. The aim is to enable the survivors to learn that memories and events related to trauma involve no danger. Hence, there is no need for the trauma survivors to escape from them.
It is typical with trauma survivors to avoid trauma-related memories, feelings, and events. However, running away from anything that reminds them of trauma only adds to their fear.
PE is based on the idea that by repeatedly facing the trauma narrative and dreadful feelings associated with it, one can reduce PTSD symptoms. That is, facing the fear instead of escaping from it can actually help in reducing the PTSD symptoms.
PE involves the therapist giving the trauma survivor a briefing of the treatment and hearing out the survivor’s past trauma. Then, after psychoeducation, the survivor is exposed to the traumatic event. This involves asking the survivor to either re-imagine or relive the trauma. Or it involves identifying places, people, and vents outside the therapy session that remind the survivor of the trauma. The survivor is then asked to face these people, places, etc as a home assignment to get rid of the fear attached to them.
3. Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT)
This is a type of CBT where the trauma survivor is educated about symptoms of PTSD and the relationship between trauma-related thoughts and feelings. The survivor is made to understand how this association and the automatic thoughts maintain the PTSD symptoms. Here techniques like Socratic Questioning are used by the therapist to help the survivor identify unhelpful thoughts related to trauma. The idea is to help the survivor to identify and alter the maladaptive thoughts.
4. Cognitive Therapy (CT)
CT is also psychotherapy that comes from CBT. The aim of this therapy is to help the trauma survivor alter the negative evaluations and memories associated with trauma. The aim is to interfere with the unhelpful behavior and thought patterns that impair day-to-day functioning.
Here, the mental health care provider enables the survivor to understand the meaning of the trauma-related memories. Not only this, but the professional also helps the survivor to understand how the survivor currently understands them. He also enables the survivor to become aware of the negative evaluations that the survivor has done of the trauma. And that such evaluations will only add to the problem.
The typical strategy used by professionals here is Socratic Questioning, This involves asking questions that help the survivor to evaluate the trauma differently. Not only this, but the therapist also enables the survivor to combine this new, meaningful evaluation with the traumatic memory.
The therapist also directs the survivor to write a meaningful account of trauma by reliving it or revising the places, people, etc who were part of the event. The aim of such exposure is to identify the triggers that evoke strong responses and use cognitive restructuring at that moment.
This helps in getting rid of those unhelpful thoughts related to trauma. Lastly, the mental health care provider also helps the survivor do away with behaviors that may maintain PTSD symptoms in the future. These may include suppression of thoughts, rumination, etc.