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Treatment
A number of psychotherapy approaches have been designed with the treatment of trauma in mind—EMDR, progressive counting (PC), somatic experiencing, biofeedback, Internal Family Systems Therapy, and sensorimotor psychotherapy.

There is a large body of empirical support for the use of cognitive behavioral therapy for the treatment of trauma-related symptoms, including post-traumatic stress disorder. Institute of Medicine guidelines identify cognitive behavioral therapies as the most effective treatments for PTSD. Two of these cognitive behavioral therapies, prolonged exposure and cognitive processing therapy, are being disseminated nationally by the Department of Veterans Affairs for the treatment of PTSD. Seeking Safety is another type of cognitive behavioral therapy that focuses on learning safe coping skills for co-occurring PTSD and substance use problems. While some sources highlight Seeking Safety as effective with strong research support, others have suggested that it did not lead to improvements beyond usual treatment.

Recent studies show that a combination of treatments involving dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), often used for borderline personality disorder, and exposure therapy is highly effective in treating psychological trauma. If, however, psychological trauma has caused dissociative disorders or complex PTSD, the trauma model approach (also known as phase-oriented treatment of structural dissociation) has been proven to work better than simple cognitive approach. Studies funded by pharmaceuticals have also shown that medications such as the new anti-depressants are effective when used in combination with other psychological approaches.

Trauma therapy allows processing trauma-related memories and allows growth towards more adaptive psychological functioning. It helps to develop positive coping instead of negative coping and allows the individual to integrate upsetting-distressing material (thoughts, feelings and memories) and to resolve these internally. It also aids in growth of personal skills like resilience, ego regulation, empathy, etc.

Processes involved in trauma therapy are:


 * Psychoeducation: Information dissemination and educating in vulnerabilities and adoptable coping mechanisms.
 * Emotional regulation: Identifying, countering discriminating, grounding thoughts and emotions from internal construction to an external representation.
 * Cognitive processing: Transforming negative perceptions and beliefs about self, others and environment to positive ones through cognitive reconsideration or re-framing.
 * Trauma processing: Systematic desensitization, response activation and counter-conditioning, titrated extinction of emotional response, deconstructing disparity (emotional vs. reality state), resolution of traumatic material (in theory, to a state in which triggers no longer produce harmful distress and the individual is able to express relief.)
 * Emotional processing: Reconstructing perceptions, beliefs and erroneous expectations, habituating new life contexts for auto-activated trauma-related fears, and providing crisis cards with coded emotions and appropriate cognitions. (This stage is only initiated in pre-termination phase from clinical assessment and judgement of the mental health professional.)
 * Experiential processing: Visualization of achieved relief state and relaxation methods.

A number of complementary approaches to trauma treatment have been implicated as well, including yoga and meditation. As an integrative treatment, yoga increases coping skills that focus on being in the present moment. Yoga can reduce worry, anxiety, and avoidance through present focused breathing and concentration techniques we well as advancing acceptance and nonjudgmental thoughts and behaviors. Similarly, meditation promotes mental focus through various meditative approaches, including mindfulness meditation, mantra meditation, and compassion meditation.