Trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy for children and adolescents -An empirical update

This article reviews the four major components of trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)for children and adolescents: exposure, cognitive p rocessing and reframing, stress management, and parental treatment. For eac h component, background, description, and the current empirical support for including each of these components in the treatment of traumatized childre n is presented. Although there is growing empirical support for the efficac y of trauma-focused CBT in decreasing psychological symptomatology, there a re inadequate data to indicate the relative contribution of the individual CBT components. Suggestions for future clinical and research directions are also discussed.