TF-CBT Trauma
Trauma in 14–18 rarely walks in wearing the trauma label — it lands as auto-arousal the teen cannot name, as sleep fragments that read as mood, and as peer-context withdrawal that looks like a choice but is really a body on alert. Traumatic grief of developmental milestones is common in this band: the friend group that drifted in May, the relationship that did not survive the move, the version of the family that was lost to deployment or incarceration, and the teen carries the loss without anyone naming it. The caregiver conjoint window closes fastest here — by mid-adolescence the household schedule is more a teen-owned artifact than a parent-owned one, and the visit that does not loop in a co-pilot is the visit where the work does not transfer. Gradual exposure is the rule rather than the exception because the teenage window of tolerance for affective load is narrower than the adult one and re-flooding within a single visit reliably drops engagement from the protocol. TF-CBT fidelity here is what the clinician runs across the full track — not a fidelity badge stamped on a single 90-minute session — and the work in this room is the front end of that protocol, not the whole of it.
- Run a safety screen and co-write a safety-plan before any trauma work begins, so the teen has a named adult, a removed means, and a code-phrase for the next seventy-two hours.
- Land the body below the trauma band with psychoeducation and relaxation/affect modulation — breath retraining, grounding, and one SAFE-style component — before any exposure is introduced.
- Move through the trauma narrative at a gradual exposure pace: cognitive processing first, written narrative as the next rung, and in vivo mastery of avoided cues, never full flooding within a single visit.
- Hold the caregiver conjoint window (PRACTICE "C" and "E" components) before the visit closes so the home environment absorbs the work between sessions and the parent becomes a co-pilot rather than a spectator.
- Safety-plan card (one per teen, half-letter, 110 lb stock — locked means, code phrase, two named adults)
- Trauma psychoeducation one-pager (half-letter, take-home; parents get the matching version)
- Narrative thread card (4×6, blank front + guided back; one card per session of the work)
- Caregiver conjoint handout (single sheet, half-letter; covers the PRACTICE "C"/"E" share-back so the household runs the same pacing)
Kits
Kits authored under TF-CBT Trauma
Each kit is a full 90-minute session plan — clinical structure preserved, language tailored to your group's tone, scenario difficulty, and cultural context. Printable end to end.
90-minute group session · adolescent group · printable.