Write a structured impact statement exploring how the trauma has affected your beliefs about safety, trust, power, esteem, and intimacy.
Write freely about how the trauma has changed the way you see yourself, others, and the world. Focus especially on the five CPT themes: safety, trust, power/control, esteem, and intimacy. This is not a factual account of what happened — it's about meaning and impact.
Use within Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) as a structured impact statement focusing on the five stuck point themes: safety, trust, power/control, esteem, and intimacy. Introduce in the early sessions of CPT as prescribed in the protocol.
Explain that the statement helps identify how the trauma has changed beliefs about themselves and others across key life areas. Emphasise that this is not about getting the 'right' answer but about noticing where thinking may have become stuck in understandable but unhelpful patterns.
For clients who struggle with the open-ended format, provide structured prompts for each of the five themes. For clients with developmental or complex trauma, the themes may overlap significantly — help them prioritise without requiring artificial separation.
This tool is specific to the CPT protocol and should be used within that framework rather than as a standalone exercise. Avoid if the client has not been adequately socialised to the CPT model, including the distinction between assimilated and over-accommodated beliefs.
Use the statement to identify the client's primary stuck points, which will be targeted through Socratic questioning and challenging beliefs worksheets in subsequent CPT sessions. The five themes provide a systematic framework for tracking belief change across treatment.
Suitable for clients working with ptsd, impact statement, cpt, trauma, beliefs, safety, trust, esteem. This tool can be used as a standalone worksheet or as part of a structured homework plan.
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Practise and record the use of grounding techniques when experiencing flashbacks, dissociation, or overwhelming emotions.
Explore how the traumatic event has affected your beliefs about yourself, others, and the world.
Prepare for a visit to the trauma site, record predictions, and process the experience afterwards to update the trauma memory.
Track PTSD symptoms across the four DSM-5 clusters — intrusion, avoidance, negative cognitions and mood, and arousal and reactivity — to monitor progress through treatment.