Types of Trauma Therapy: EMDR, TF-CBT & More
Point 8 of 10 · Through what happened to you
Enters through the circle and the body at once
Through what happened to you
Trauma writes itself into both the lens and the nervous system, so trauma therapies work both at once: helping a stuck memory finish processing so it can become something that happened to you rather than something that keeps happening in you.
This point might fit if a past event still feels present-tense — showing up as flashbacks, nightmares, hypervigilance, or a life carefully arranged around avoiding reminders.
View the full map →EMDR
Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing: hold the memory in mind while following guided eye movements, and let the stuck memory finish processing.
Read the full guide →Trauma-focused CBT (TF-CBT)
The leading trauma treatment for children and teens, involving caregivers throughout: skills first, then a gradual trauma narrative, then safety and growth.
Narrative exposure therapy
Builds a chronological testimony of a whole life — flowers and stones — developed for survivors of repeated and organized violence, including refugees.
Brainspotting
Works from fixed eye positions (“where you look affects how you feel”) to access and process trauma held below verbal reach. Newer, with a growing but smaller evidence base than EMDR.
Accelerated resolution therapy
A brief eye-movement-based protocol that has the person replace distressing images with chosen ones — promising trials, especially with military populations.
Seeking Safety
A present-focused program for the trauma-plus-addiction combination: safety and coping first, without requiring the trauma story to be told.
STAIR
Skills Training in Affective and Interpersonal Regulation: builds emotion and relationship skills first — often before, or alongside, memory-focused work — for complex trauma.
Child-parent psychotherapy
For young children (0–5) after trauma: treats the child and caregiver together, because at that age, the relationship is the intervention.
Trauma resiliency model
Teaches simple, body-based skills — tracking, resourcing, grounding — to bring the nervous system back into its resilient zone.
Lifespan integration
Uses a repeated timeline of memories to help the body-mind grasp, at a felt level, that the trauma is over and life continued.
Flash technique
An EMDR-adjacent method in which the memory is barely touched — engaged in brief “flashes” while attention rests on something positive — designed to be minimally distressing.
Ketamine-assisted psychotherapy
Pairs the temporary flexibility of a ketamine session with structured preparation and integration therapy — a medical treatment requiring licensed prescribers.
Psychedelic-assisted therapy (investigational)
MDMA- and psilocybin-assisted protocols under formal research; not yet an approved standard treatment, and only legitimate inside regulated trials and jurisdictions.
Featured guide
What is EMDR therapy? How it works, honestly
The full guide: a walk in the park in 1987, what happens in the room, and the honest state of the evidence.
Read the full guideReading about it is a beginning. Talking about it is a next step.
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