Children who have developed emotional and behavioral sequelae to a traumatic event require a therapy modality that provides psychoeducation and skills development to both the child and to their caregivers.
Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT) is a modality that provides a structured approach to helping a child process and recover from traumatic events, while also helping parents learn how they can best support their child.
Initial TF-CBT sessions focus on helping a child recognize their responses to trauma and learning how to express what they are experiencing. Parents receive education on how to help their children when these reactions are occuring.
Next, the therapist works with the child on how to share information about their traumatic experience, and how to share how their traumatic experience is affecting their life now. Through this process, the child learns how to navigate difficult memories and the often frightening or overwhelming responses to them. The therapist will encourage a child to use whatever expressive approach works best for them, including drawing, writing, or story telling.
Helping a child express their trauma narrative also provides an opportunity to introduce this information to their parents. The therapist will use the trauma narratives created by the child to coach parents on how to helpfully respond when they are given similar information first hand from their children.
After a traumatic experience, many children develop fears that somehow relate back to what happened to them. Some of these fears are very obvious and easy for an adult to follow. Others are less obviously related, sometimes even to the child. The final sessions of TF-CBT focus on helping the child and their caregivers understand what trauma reminders are, and also how to develop ways to feel safer and more prepared moving through the world around them.
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