Intensive PTSD Treatment

For this initial week of intensive PTSD work, you can plan to devote pretty much the entire week M-F to your trauma therapy.

You’ll come into our office each day for two in person, individual counseling sessions with one of our CPT trained trauma therapists.

You’ll also be expected to take daily scales/assessments so we can monitor your progress, watch videos and complete skills modules in our online course, participate in daily meditation sessions with one of our therapists and complete several worksheets per day worth of homework. You should plan on taking this week completely off from work or school.

One week of intensive work is unlikely to “cure” your PTSD. But you WILL make significant progress. More and more research is emerging about this “massed” treatment and finding it to be really effective in helping people make significant progress in treating their PTSD.

That said, one week is a short period of time meant to “jumpstart” your healing. Most people will need to continue with weekly trauma therapy for at least a couple more months after this week.

Some people may choose to complete a second week of intensive treatment with their Aspire Counseling CPT therapist. The second week can look extremely similar to the first. OR, it may include only a single counseling session per day. Some people choose to use the second week to complete the CBT for nightmares protocol as nightmares can be a PTSD symptom that take a little more direct work to get rid of.

For licensing reasons, our clinicians can only work with people who are physically located in the state of Missouri. So, it is possible for us to treat someone who doesn’t live in Missouri, but only if they come to Columbia for the time period they’re in treatment. We also offer Trauma Intensives at our Lee’s Summit. MO office.

If you live in another part of the state of Missouri, we may be able to offer the treatment completely online. However, we generally find it’s easier to focus completely on your treatment and get the most out of this program if you are in person for at least that first week.

All of our clinicians have participated in at least a two day/16 hour Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) training, read the CPT manual and receive regular consultation from the other trauma therapists at our practice. Several have additional qualifications such as having attended multiple CPT trainings or are fully trained in other types of evidence based trauma therapy.

For a long time, we’ve believed that if we treat the PTSD, the trauma nightmares will go away. And to good extent, that’s true. So, our hope would be that this week of treatment would result in a reduction of nightmares.

However, nightmares are a PTSD symptom that can be kind of hang around even when the underlying PTSD starts to improve.

That is why we’re also training our therapists on a CBT protocol to directly target nightmares. If you’re really struggling with nightmares, we recommend planning on a second week of PTSD treatment that will include the nightmare protocol and a more intense focus on directly treating the nightmares.

While we hope to see a significant decrease in your PTSD symptoms in the two weeks, it’s likely you’ll still need weekly trauma therapy for at least a couple of months after you finish.

Absolutely. This isn’t meant to be the only therapy you’ll ever receive. So, if you already have a therapist you like, that’s wonderful! You can absolutely continue with that person. You’ll just take two weeks off of seeing them to complete this trauma intensive program. Then, sign an release of information so your trauma therapist at Aspire can touch base with your other clinician about your progress and you can resume you’re typical work with that individual.