CBT for Trauma

CBT helps people recover from trauma by addressing the thoughts, emotions, and behaviours that keep them caught in distress. It helps clients understand how trauma affects the mind and body and increases awareness of the patterns that maintain fear and avoidance.

Through exposure, clients gradually face memories and situations they have been avoiding, while cognitively focused strategies support them in exploring trauma related beliefs such as self-blame, opening space for more helpful perspectives and ways of coping. Together, these processes reduce distress, rebuild a sense of safety, and support healing after trauma.

Yes. The course covers both PTSD and trauma-related distress across diagnoses. You’ll learn practical ways to support clients affected by trauma, even when trauma isn’t the primary presenting issue.

Yes. This course brings together the two leading CBT models for trauma, exposure and cognitively focused approaches, within a unified framework that you can adapt to each client’s needs. You’ll learn when and how to use each approach to support recovery and help clients rebuild a sense of safety and connection after trauma.

Yes. PTSD often occurs alongside depression, anxiety, substance use, or other difficulties that develop as ways of coping with trauma-related distress. The course shows how to understand these co-occurring problems within a CBT framework and identify what’s maintaining distress.

You’ll learn how to focus treatment where it’s most effective, recognising that when PTSD is addressed directly, related symptoms often improve. The teaching also covers how to adapt your approach when conditions such as emotion dysregulation, self-harm, or substance use need additional or concurrent attention.

• If you complete the full course, you’ll receive a Certificate of Completion.

• If you complete at least 75%, you’ll receive a Letter of Participation.

To earn a CE/CME Certificate, you’ll need to:

1. Score at least 80% overall on the course quizzes.

   - All quiz questions (except any pre-test questions) count toward your score.

   - You have up to three attempts to answer each multiple choice question correctly.

2. Complete the full course.

3. Pay the $20 USD CE/CME processing fee before you finish the course.

4. Submit the post-course evaluation form.

All certificates will be available for download in 'My Dashboard' - please allow at least seven days for processing.