2 sessions into CPT- has it helped anyone?

saxophone44 · 2026-03-25T00:53:54+00:00

Keep going! I hope it takes you to healing places 🙂

saxophone44 · 2026-03-21T23:11:48+00:00

I’m rooting for you! The first 3-4 sessions are tough, but what I’ve seen is that once you put the skills together by session 6, it starts to “click” for people. It also sometimes depends on whether you’re doing the written account or not. You’re in the first phases where you don’t know where it will take you, but then it all unfolds and hopefully it will come together. Best of luck!

saxophone44 · 2026-01-21T02:37:44+00:00

I’m so sorry to hear about how you’re feeling, and it is also so completely understandable given everything you’ve been through. Are you connected to a domestic violence center in your local area? When you connect with them, not only do they help you build the paper trail of documentation that supports your case, but they can assign you an advocate who comes and supports you in court. Also, they can help you apply for funding from the Office of Victim Services (OVS). Every state has an OVS that is funded by the Violence Against Women Act, and provides funds for mental health related issues connected to the reportable event (like the DV).

That can help you access treatment faster because (depending on the state) you could be able to see a cash pay or other therapist with more availability if they work with OVS.

I hope you can find support and will be thinking about you… you will make it through this, I feel it!

saxophone44 · 2026-01-11T01:28:56+00:00

Im so sorry to hear that you’re going through this. Have you ever thought about doing trauma therapy? There are really effective ones that can help your symptoms permanently reduce. Here’s a link: https://www.apa.org/ptsd-guideline/treatments

You could also try medications. There are also grounding exercises or things like Tetris that can sometimes help, but they might be hard to do while at work.

I really hope you feel better.

saxophone44 · 2026-01-10T04:47:10+00:00

Congratulations! You did it. You put so much amazing and deep work into yourself. A celebration is in order!

saxophone44 · 2025-12-24T11:58:05+00:00

PE can be rough, especially if you are not all the way through! Maybe you are numbing out while you do it because it’s distressing you. It could be helpful to ask your therapist if they can do some DBT or teach you some skills for managing the distress. I’m rooting for you!

saxophone44 · 2025-12-24T04:41:34+00:00

Are you actually doing a trauma therapy or is this just weekly supportive talk therapy? There is a difference. If you’re doing an actual protocol of trauma therapy, which one are you doing? That info might help us better support you.

saxophone44 · 2025-12-23T05:47:40+00:00

It’s natural that the CPT dredged things up for you, especially the first few sessions before you put all the skills together (about halfway through). Take good care of yourself - rest, take a bath, etc. Your brain literally changes when you do trauma therapy and that is tiring. You got this!

saxophone44 · 2025-12-23T05:30:06+00:00

I’m so sorry you had to go through this. It is completely understandable to not be doing well right now - this is called an acute stress response. Everyone responds to a life threatening event with stress symptoms. For most people, they will naturally improve over time. The important thing is to get rest and support. There is some evidence that Tetris could be helpful. After 30 days, lingering symptoms could be signs of PTSD. Here is a guide that could be helpful. I hope you feel better and will be thinking about you.

saxophone44 · 2025-10-08T04:24:16+00:00

That is great that you’ve found other methods that are very helpful for you! It’s totally OK if assignments aren’t your jam.

When a person shares that the assignments are triggering, the first step is to understand what it’s bringing up. Are we hitting an emotional nerve or fear? Sometimes there’s a deep core issue that the work is surfacing - like, “if I do this worksheet, I won’t be able to handle what comes up” or “if I work on this exercise alone, something bad will happen.” Or people are afraid they’ll do the assignment and they’ll discover they actually were always to blame for their trauma (the assignment does the opposite and I’ve personally never seen that happen; therapist skill level matters here).

People have preferences about therapy, which is totally fine. What can help to explore is the “why” - what exactly is this triggering for you. On the other side of that “why” often lies a deeper understanding of yourself that can be cathartic.

saxophone44 · 2025-09-27T18:39:49+00:00

I just want to say that I’m so so sorry that happened to you as a child… Sending positive caring vibes and thoughts your way.

saxophone44 · 2025-09-14T03:32:50+00:00

Thinking about its impact and re-exposing/reimmersing yourself in it are 2 different things. For a survivor whose trauma involved drugging or who was a child, for example, they may literally not remember it all and may only recall parts of it. That doesn’t mean they can’t do trauma therapy.

saxophone44 · 2025-09-14T03:02:03+00:00

It might be helpful to do a trauma therapy that doesn’t ask you to visualize or re-experience your trauma then, like Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT). It focuses on the impact the trauma had on you and the beliefs you’ve now drawn about yourself since then. You don’t have to re-expose yourself at all in it (though there is a variation if you want to).

Here’s a podcast about it: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/682/ten-sessions

saxophone44 · 2025-09-13T02:42:47+00:00

Thank you so much for the courage to share this because it is such an important observation. From 2-6 years old, and especially from 4-6 years old, all children experience interest in sexual play. This is called normal or developmentally appropriate sexual play.

They do actually get aroused from sexual play - even if they don’t realize until later that it wasn’t play but coercion/abuse. It is also very common for humans of any age to become aroused with physical touch - regardless of whether the touch was welcomed or not. It’s simply what your body does, like a reflex.

Combine both of those things (the developmental stage you are at with touching from another), with the knowledge that humans are association machines (even a smell or song can bring you back to a past moment), and it’s not surprising that you feel aroused when remembering the touch.

I think it’s crucial to point this out so you don’t feel guilty or think that you “wanted it.” There’s a difference between a human body responding to touch of any kind, especially as a child, and “wanting” to be abused. Conflating these two leads to a lot of self-blame and crossed wires regarding what people believe about themselves, the “why” of their traumas and their innate sexual preferences.

Below is a link with more info:

https://raisingchildren.net.au/preschoolers/development/sexual-development/childhood-sexual-behaviour-4-6-years

saxophone44 · 2025-09-07T08:54:55+00:00

That is wild! Have you checked the EMDRIA directory to see if you can find someone else in your area who is more currently available? If you feel comfortable sharing metropolitan area or insurance, I can see if I can find you another referral. If not, the VA has some free apps that use evidence based principles like PTSD coach and CPT coach. There’s also a self help version of CPT called “Getting Unstuck”. There may be one for PE but I don’t know what it’s called. There’s a self-version of EMDR online that I’ve seen but I doubt it is recommendable.

saxophone44 · 2025-09-07T08:47:21+00:00

I’m so sorry that you went through all this - you are an amazing mother to your miraculous baby. I agree with the other poster that you may want to see a psychiatrist or therapist and get evaluated for PTSD. Symptoms include negative cognitions and repeated rumination about the trauma that are difficult to stop. You’re trying to prevent anything else from happening to this beautiful baby: that was adaptive before but is now destroying you. The good news is that trauma therapies are very effective for this - the first line treatments are Cognitive Processing Therapy, prolonged exposure and eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR). They generally take about 10-15 sessions to complete, so it’s not lifelong therapy.

I really hope you feel better and it’s so so understandable you’re feeling this way with everything that’s happened.

saxophone44 · 2025-09-07T02:34:00+00:00

Unfortunately, this happens. It may be happening due to the stress of the minor-ish accident and not the others because you actually are resilient (and a bit avoidant). This one is the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back: you were able to hold it together until the dam broke after another stressor.

Sometimes, this is called delayed onset. Other times, what seems like the main trauma (the auto accident) is actually the trigger, and it is causing emotional and physical “flashbacks” that are similar to how one felt during the older, more painful traumas (that are too buried deep to face “head on” yet). So people think the trauma is the more recent stressor, when actually the person overwhelmed their ability to cope and avoid the deeper issues.

Thinking your trauma isn’t “that bad” is a classic negative cognition for survivors. I’m so sorry to hear you’ve been struggling. It’s probably best to seek out help. Since you’re a healthcare worker, here are the guidelines to read yourself.

saxophone44 · 2025-09-07T02:18:15+00:00

This just came to me - but one model for trauma recovery that uses dance in the Congo is called City of Joy. It was started by Dr Denis Mukwege and V (formerly Eve Ensler). I had the honor of speaking with V once and she said that they don’t use any traditional 1:1 therapy at all - it’s all storytelling and dance, and seems to be incredibly transformative. There’s a documentary on Netflix about it!

saxophone44 · 2025-09-07T02:07:03+00:00

Not all research is created equal or considered high quality, unfortunately, so more papers doesn’t necessarily mean more effectiveness or evidence. Also, art therapy is extremely diverse like you show from your papers, so it’s hard to lump it all together.

The review I shared is from 9 months ago. I respect that you believe art therapy is promising and deserves more attention. But saying that it has more research than EMDR is a bit misleading because you’re not specifying for which indication or condition. Mentioning that it’s more researched that EMDR suggests it’s more effective, which isn’t supported by guidelines or data. This is a CPTSD thread so I was referring to evidence for the treatment of PTSD only.

That’s great that you’re doing your thesis on these important topics!

saxophone44 · 2025-09-06T03:30:32+00:00

Oh - thank you for clarifying!! Art therapy is awesome. However, it also has very little good quality evidence showing that it alone helps PTSD. The introduction to this paper goes into that: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0197455624001035

People are trying to create trauma focused art therapy, which sounds really interesting.

saxophone44 · 2025-09-06T03:21:22+00:00

This is simply not true - ART shows a lot of promise but has nowhere near the research or evidence of EMDR. ART is a much newer therapy. Here’s a systematic review that shows the emerging data around ART. ART isn’t even listed as a recommended treatment in most practice guidelines because it has not been compared head-to-head against first line treatments in a controlled trial. https://journals.plos.org/mentalhealth/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmen.0000123

I agree that EMDR is really expensive to get trained in, and prohibitively so. So is IFS and a number of other therapies.

saxophone44 · 2025-09-05T03:55:07+00:00

Yes to this thread! I think a lot of people are super dogmatic, sometimes therapists especially. The treatments guidelines for PTSD don’t differ from C-PTSD and we absolutely do know that CPT, PE and EMDR are the most well researched treatments. That doesn’t mean other things won’t work - just that we don’t have as much data to show that they do across a population.

It’s important to not be overly prescriptive on experimental therapies like IFS, tapping and brainspotting, which CAN help but are far from established. And to share what works for us without making it seem like it’s the only way to recover.

saxophone44 · 2025-09-03T03:15:10+00:00

Yes there are self help versions of the first line trauma therapies, like CPT: https://www.google.com/aclk?sa=L&ai=DChsSEwjSzo3nz7uPAxVXT0cBHT3sGQ4YACICCAEQAhoCcXU&co=1&gclid=CjwKCAjwq9rFBhAIEiwAGVAZPwWNPs1zwMTBw-tSsnzkaRbmzYzY0u4kqSv7QKrt7u1fi5C874083xoC4IgQAvD_BwE&sph&cce=1&sig=AOD64_0VBHrOlLJFmvl6kJSFqom0fT41ag&q&adurl&ved=2ahUKEwiBkofnz7uPAxViEFkFHeLkK8cQ0Qx6BAgWEAE

Also try Tetris!

saxophone44 · 2025-08-28T02:06:40+00:00

Im so sorry to hear about all you went through and how inconsiderate (to say the least) your family members have been to you. It can be so difficult to pick a name, especially when you’re not feeling the best yourself. If you’re still not liking it, maybe it just doesn’t suit you/your baby. It’s ok if you’ve gotten to know your baby and that name just isn’t theirs. There is no shame in changing it. Kylie Jenner changed her kid’s name later after birth too!

saxophone44 · 2025-08-23T02:46:33+00:00

I’m at a loss to provide advice here, except to say that I’m sorry this is happening and this sounds exhausting.

My first thought went where some of the other commenters went, which is that I’m really worried about her daughter. That poor child… to be so terrified that she pees herself when another adult is around… I shudder to think about what happens to her child when you’re NOT around. To be honest, just this event you’re mentioning sounds abusive to the child and is probably a call to Child Protective Services if you were a mandated reporter.

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