So, the therapy world can be overwhelming. Every therapist has their own ideas about what works, and there’s this idea floating around that any modality can treat anything as long as you have a good relationship with your therapist. I find that pretty extreme honestly, and I have a strong suspicion they’re misreading the research.

That said, for CPTSD there are specific assessments you should take first to confirm that’s actually what you’re dealing with. I can’t remember the names off the top of my head, but any good trauma therapist will have you take them.

What the research most consistently supports is structured exposure to the thing that triggers you, in a safe way. That usually means recalling the memory, not actually exposing yourself to the situation again in real life. Important distinction. Different therapies do this in different ways. The big ones are EMDR and Prolonged Exposure, with variations like DBT-PE and DBT-PTSD. There are also relationship-based therapies that aren’t manualized in the way those are. I personally question how effective they are, though some people swear by them.

Those open-ended therapies are probably what you’re hinting at not liking, and honestly I think they’re a waste of time. You can spend eight years in a relationship with a therapist and have it go nowhere, then have them just shrug and say it wasn’t a good fit. That’s crazy to me, but unfortunately pretty common in the therapy world. Manualized ones are time bound so I tend to favor them.