Cognitive Processing Therapy or CPT is designed for adults 18 or older with a diagnosis of PTSD. CPT is formulated from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy by challenging our thoughts and beliefs about a traumatic situation. Psychoeducation is provided about trauma, CBT and different types of thinking errors. CPT involves practicing skills outside of session to help you learn to be your own therapist. Because it is teaching you to do therapy techniques in and out of session you will have homework to do between sessions, sometimes daily homework. Each week these skills build on each other until they combine into one final paper that you can easily look at, fill out and adjust accordingly. Weekly sessions are generally recommended for CPT but are not a requirement. Each session we will measure your progress with a short questionnaire and can plot on a graph so you can see how your symptoms have changed over time. CPT is designed to be completed in ten sessions, and if done on a weekly basis can be completed in two and a half months. However, many clients have benefitted by going over ten sessions and doing a few more such as fifteen sessions. Throughout your work with CPT, your provider will help you develop your “stuck points” or beliefs that you have about yourself or the world that may have changed due to the traumatic event(s).
https://www.thisamericanlife.org/682/ten-sessions
In this link, a client completes and records some of her ten sessions working through CPT. Please be aware that these episodes do contain some information about her trauma and listen with care. This client teamed up with a therapist to complete her ten sessions in ten days which is generally not recommended and seemed to be completed at least in part due to transportation limitations.
Cognitive Processing Therapy and how it works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jqj5zDbkPxY
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapy-types/cognitive-processing-therapy
CPT App
CPT Coach is an app you can download that has much of the information from CPT so you can keep your homework all in one place or it can serve as a gentle reminder if you forget which worksheet was your homework that week. This app was developed by the US Department of Veteran Affairs as they noticed success with some of their war veterans. If you would like to see the worksheets to get an idea of what this treatment would be like, you can download this app and it can walk you through each worksheet.