The idea behind cognitive behavioral treatment is that when patients are repeatedly exposed to the stimulus without bad things actually happening, they gradually will become less upset; the bad memories will have become associated with “corrective” information of being safe.33 CBT also tries to help patients deal with their tendency to avoid, as in “I don’t want to talk about it.”34 It sounds simple, but, as we have seen, reliving trauma reactivates the brain’s alarm system and knocks out critical brain areas necessary for integrating the past, making it likely that patients will relive rather
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