PTSD: National Center for PTSD

Individuals with PTSD and borderline personality disorder (BPD) exhibit greater impairment than those with either disorder alone, including higher rates of suicidal and non-suicidal self-injury, more comorbidity with other psychiatric disorders, greater emotion dysregulation, and worse overall functioning.

This online course provides information about which PTSD treatment approaches are likely to be safe and effective for individuals with BPD of varying levels of severity. Recommendations for how best to match research-supported treatments for PTSD to patients with BPD based on their overall level of disorder will be provided.

Following disaster events, mental health providers see patients with common challenges. There is universality about what works across different types of disasters, informing providers about important actions to take.

This online course presents evidence-informed strategies and practical tools to support individuals affected by disaster events. The author provides guidance on recognizing challenges, tailoring care to individual needs, modifying treatment approaches, fostering coping skills, and applying a framework to enhance safety, calming, connectedness, self-efficacy, and hope with an emphasis on effective communication.

Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) yields large reductions in primary PTSD outcomes. Corresponding gains in occupational, social, leisure, and sexual functioning, as well as in health-related concerns, are also demonstrated. Despite CPT’s effectiveness, there is room for improvement in overall outcomes, including functioning and quality of life, in addition to patient engagement.

This online course describes the importance of balancing fidelity to the manualized treatment protocol and being flexible in administration to best meet the needs of a patient. Case formulation is discussed as an approach for more personalized care.

Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) is an evidence-based cognitive behavioral therapy used to effectively treat PTSD. Recent research findings inform our understanding of predictors of outcomes, treatment of comorbidities, alternative delivery methods and effectiveness of CPT in international samples. CPT clinical practice recommendations incorporate these findings.

This online course provides updated knowledge of the research evidence supporting CPT and clinical practice developments. The authors discuss the 2nd Edition of the CPT manual, emphasizing case conceptualization and CPT-specific engagement strategies. Clinicians will learn to better address individual concerns to delivering effective CPT for a wide range of patients.

Complex presentations of PTSD may include dissociation and somatization. Such complexities may lead both clinicians and patients to hesitate to engage in an evidence-based treatment for PTSD as recommended by clinical practice guidelines.

This course will help clinicians to identify and conceptualize dissociation and somatization presentations as trauma reactions within a PTSD case conceptualization framework. The authors share measurement tools to encourage assessment and diagnosis and review clinical suggestions to support first-line and second-line evidence-based PTSD treatment for Veterans with these complex presentations.