How therapy works here

Before any course of individual treatment starts, there is a full intake appointment. It covers your history, what has been happening, what you have already tried, and what you would like to be different. Nothing gets decided before that conversation, and nothing gets decided without you.

Whether that course turns out to be Cognitive Processing Therapy or something else, the plan grows out of that first conversation.

Groups work differently. You can enroll in a group directly, without an intake, because the protocol is the same for everyone in the room. The single exception is the trauma skills group, which starts with an intake so Dr. Thaxter can make sure it suits you.

This matters more than it sounds. The same problem can call for quite different work depending on the person. A good plan comes from understanding someone, not from matching a symptom to a protocol.

How the approach is chosen

Dr. Thaxter is trained across several evidence-based approaches: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Dialectical Behavior Therapy, and Cognitive Processing Therapy. She draws on whichever fits you. Some people do best with a structured, time-limited protocol. Others need something more open. Many courses of care draw on more than one, and the balance shifts as things change.

Whatever the approach, you will know what it is and why it was suggested. Progress is reviewed as you go, and if something is not working, it changes. You will not be left guessing.

Every one of these approaches is evidence-based: tested in clinical trials, with a clear structure, and delivered the way it was designed.

Cognitive Processing Therapy

CPT is one of the treatments most strongly recommended for PTSD by the VA and Department of Defense clinical practice guideline, and it is an approach Dr. Thaxter trained in through the VA. She completed the specific training and consultation the treatment’s developers require, and is listed on the national CPT Provider Roster they maintain at cptforptsd.com. It is structured and time-limited, often around twelve sessions, though this varies with the person and is never applied rigidly.

It works on the beliefs that formed during a very hard time and have not been looked at since. Beliefs like “I should have known” or “I can’t trust my own judgment” were reasonable conclusions at the time. They have simply never been revisited with everything you know now. CPT asks less about what happened than about what you took from it.

There is usually short written work between sessions. A good deal of the change happens there, and Dr. Thaxter will say so from the start, so it never comes as a surprise.

A note on how it can feel

Trauma work sometimes feels harder before it feels easier. If you have spent years organizing life around not looking at something directly, beginning to look at it can be uncomfortable. That’s expected, it passes, and you’ll talk it through together beforehand so you’re never caught off guard. The pace is yours.

Where another clinician may be the better fit

This is an adult practice, and some situations call for a different level of care: acute crisis, active suicidality, untreated substance dependence needing detox, eating disorders requiring medical monitoring, or psychotic disorders needing a treatment team. Court-ordered evaluations and custody work are outside the scope of this practice, and medication is not prescribed here. If one of those is where you are, that isn’t a judgment, and Dr. Thaxter is glad to help point you toward the right kind of care.