Trauma-Focused Therapy
KCSARC provides trauma-specific, evidence-based therapy to help victims of sexual assault heal.
Individual therapy is available for children aged 6+, teens and adults.
Cost is never a barrier to therapy services.
Therapy can offer survivors new hope.
What to expect when you call
One of KCSARC’s Client Care Specialists can inform you in more detail about our therapy services and help determine if they may be right for you. If so, you will be scheduled for an assessment.
An assessment includes an in-depth interview to better understand your trauma history and related impact on your day-to-day life. Assessment can take between two to four hours, split into two sessions. From there, recommendations for therapy will be made, and together with your therapist, you will develop a treatment plan tailored to your goals for therapy.
How treatment works
KCSARC specializes in treating the effects of trauma caused by sexual assault, for both adults as well as children and adolescents. We also treat children and adolescents affected by the trauma of physical abuse.
The main goals of trauma-focused treatment are symptom reduction and trauma integration, which is important to managing distressing feelings that may be preventing you from living the life you would like to be living instead of self-care and routine activities. It is effective in reducing symptoms of PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), depression and anxiety, as well as other related issues resulting from the assault or abuse.
It may be surprising to know most clients complete this kind of structured, focused therapy in an average of 16-20 sessions, and experience significant symptom relief. Treatment is flexible and individualized based on client’s needs.
Therapy services for adults:
KCSARC provides individual therapy for adults who have experienced the trauma of sexual assault in adulthood or childhood. The therapy focuses on trauma, whether related to a recent sexual assault or one that occurred in previous years.
KCSARC occasionally offers structured group therapy for adult survivors of sexual assault.
Therapy services for children and adolescents:
Children and young people aged 6 and up who have been sexually and/or physically assaulted can benefit from trauma-specific individual therapy when their primary emotional and behavioral health issues are caused by the trauma of sexual/physical assault.
Because sexual abuse of a child affects the entire family, KCSARC encourages and supports parent/caregivers involvement in a young person’s treatment. Parents/caregivers are actively involved in the therapeutic process, including involvement in individual therapy sessions and working with a parent educator.
KCSARC can help parents or caregivers better understand and respond to their younger child’s emotional reactions to abuse by working with a parent educator in our Family Services program.
Types of Treatment Available at KCSARC
We offer the most researched effective treatments for PTSD, including:
- Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT)
- Prolonged Exposure Therapy (PE)
- Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT)
What is cognitive processing therapy (CPT)?
NPR’s This American Life aired a first-person narrative by New York Times Magazine writer and author Jaime Lowe about the experience of going though CPT.