These are the therapy approaches most often used with children, teens, and adults suffering from trauma or loss. You can expect to encounter one or more of these, depending on the needs of yourself, your child, and family, as well as the style and training of the therapist. Each approach can be effective when it is properly used.
Family Therapy recognizes the importance of the relationships between children, parents, and other family members. The therapist can learn more about the child from family members, and can help family members to get better at supporting the child's recovery.
Talk Therapy involves helping the client to face the memory, and talk through the various upsetting parts. This is used more with older children, teen-agers, and adults.
Play Therapy might include art, puppets, games, or play-acting. Younger children often find it easier to work with their concerns symbolically, and in an active way, rather than by using words.
Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy uses small rewards or successes as motivators to replace negative thoughts, feelings, and behaviors with more useful ones, in a systematic, stepwise manner.
Pharmacotherapy relies on medication to help a client feel more normal. Rarely used in cases of trauma and loss, its function would be to stabilize a client at risk of suicide or other extreme behavior. Medication would normally be discontinued once the client has successfully completed other treatment and is no longer at risk.
EMDR is specialized for helping children, teens, and adults to work through a trauma or loss memory thoroughly and quickly, sometimes in a single session. This new method has already been proven in controlled studies, and will become more widely available as local therapists obtain training.