A Beginner’s Guide to Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT)
While trauma affects both the brain and body, it also reshapes the meaning we attach to what happened. But often those stories can keep us feeling stuck. Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) is designed to help you examine those painful narratives, challenge what no longer serves you, and rebuild a sense of clarity, safety, and control. This post will explore how CPT works and why it can be such a powerful tool on the path to recovery.
What Is Cognitive Processing Therapy, and Who Can Benefit From It?
CPT is a short-term, evidence-based treatment designed to gently examine how trauma changes your beliefs about yourself, others, and the world. These beliefs often fall into themes like safety, trust, power, control, intimacy, and self-worth.
Unlike therapies that focus heavily on retelling the trauma, CPT focuses on the meanings you may have attached to the experience—messages that may continue to shape your life long after the event has passed. In CPT, you learn to identify these beliefs and gradually replace them with thoughts that are more balanced, fair, and compassionate.
CPT has been shown to be effective for:
- Survivors of sexual assault
- Military veterans
- Individuals with childhood trauma
- People involved in accidents or natural disasters
- Survivors of violence
- Anyone navigating the lingering effects of a traumatic event
Why Trauma Changes Our Thinking
When something traumatic happens, the brain immediately shifts into protection mode. Your amygdala (the brain’s alarm system) sends a message down the brainstem, triggering a fight, flight, or freeze response based on your past experiences. Once safety is regained, the thinking part of the brain, the prefrontal cortex, is supposed to step back in to calm the alarm and restore balance.
Think of touching a hot stove: Your amygdala alerts your body to danger → you pull your hand away → your brain registers that you’re safe again → you go about your day.
But after a trauma, your brain doesn’t properly reset. The amygdala becomes hyperactive, scanning for danger even when it isn’t present. Everyday situations can feel threatening because your brain is trying to prevent the trauma from happening again. In these moments, your brain isn’t trying to think logically; it’s trying to protect you.
That’s why we sometimes end up having thoughts like “It was my fault,” “I’m not safe,” and “I can’t trust anyone.” It’s thoughts like these that really prolong our suffering. Using CPT, many people discover that the beliefs trauma created were understandable at the time, but no longer reflect who they are or what is true now.
Comparing treatments: CPT vs. EMDR
CPT and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) are both highly effective treatments for PTSD, but they take different paths toward healing. CPT is a form of talk therapy that works to reframe and challenge maladaptive thoughts about a traumatic event whereas EMDR is an experiential therapy that uses bilateral stimulation to focus on reprocessing a traumatic event. CPT is also time limited and structured, meaning that each session has its own objectives and goals.
In CPT, you can expect your therapist to provide education about trauma and PTSD, help you identify the beliefs (called stuck points) that developed from the event, and guide you through a structured process to challenge and reshape them. As therapy progresses, you’ll work together on specific areas of life that have been impacted by trauma. In order to stick to the timeline, CPT does require that a client does their own homework in between sessions, so make sure you’re motivated!
CPT doesn’t erase what happened, but it can transform the way you live with it. Many people finish CPT feeling clearer, more grounded, and more connected to themselves and others. If you’ve been feeling stuck, overwhelmed, or weighed down by trauma, CPT might be a meaningful next step.
If you’re unsure whether CPT is right for you, please feel free to reach out! We’re here to help you find the support that fits your needs.
Written by:
Elizabeth Parola, MA, Resident in Counseling