Prolonged Exposure
PE is a treatment that is typically provided over a period of three to four months of weekly psychotherapy sessions. During the initial appointment, therapists typically perform a comprehensive assessment of your trauma symptoms. After the first session, therapists will typically prepare you to engage in the treatment for 1-2 sessions. During these sessions, therapists will provide you with in-depth education about PTSD and PE, and teach you coping skills such as breathing techniques and grounding exercises. Following these sessions, exposure sessions typically begin. During exposure, there are two primary types of exposure, imaginal and in-vivo: 

• Imaginal Exposure: Imaginal exposure is conducted entirely in session with your therapist. During imaginal exposure, you and your therapist will follow a very specific protocol where you discuss your trauma and process the emotion raised by the exposure in session. As part of this protocol, you also record yourself while describing the event and listen to the records in between session. This further allows you to process the emotion related to the trauma and experience a greater relief in your PTSD symptoms. 
• In-vivo Exposure: In-vivo exposure refers to confronting feared stimuli associated with your trauma outside of session. Together with your therapist, you will brainstorm exposure exercises relevant to your experience with your trauma, and practice engaging in these exposures between session. During this process, you will be encouraged by your therapist to challenge yourself, but do so in a gradual fashion so that you are most likely to experience success in confronting your fears. 

Cognitive Processing Therapy
CPT is a short-term evidence-based treatment; typically, you engage in treatment for three to five months of weekly psychotherapy. During your initial session, your therapist will conduct a comprehensive assessment of your PTSD symptoms. If CPT is recommended, your therapist will explain their recommendation and assess whether you would like to engage in this treatment. In following sessions, your therapist will provide you with education on PTSD and CPT. Then, your therapist will focus on identifying faulty thoughts that are preventing you from recovering from the traumatic experiences. These thoughts are referred to as “stuck points” because they can keep individuals “stuck” in their PTSD and prohibit a return to normal functioning. After your therapist identifies your stuck points, they will assist you in learning how to challenge these stuck points.  

After a trauma, the way in which you view yourself, other people, and the world may fundamentally change. Often times, these changes keep you stuck in your PTSD. For example, after a trauma, you may believe that you are to blame or that the world is a fundamentally dangerous place. Often times, these beliefs affect your mental health, quality of life, relationships, and your functioning in important areas in life such as work. CPT equips you with skills to identify when these unhelpful thoughts are affecting you, and provides you with the tools to effectively challenge them. As part of CPT, you learn how to examine whether facts support or do not support your thought. This helps you identify a more accurate, helpful belief system that reduces your symptoms of PTSD and the impact your PTSD has on your life.