Prolonged Exposure (PE) is an evidence-based treatment that is also a form of CBT that focuses on helping trauma survivors emotionally process their traumatic experiences to reduce PTSD symptoms. PE focuses on educating the client on common reactions to trauma and what maintains trauma symptoms, repeated exposure to situations, people, or objects that one is avoiding because they are trauma-related and cause emotional distress such as anxiety, guilt or shame, and repeated prolonged exposure to the trauma memories (i.e., revisiting the trauma memory in imagery) to help facilitate processing of the event, the emotions, and the thoughts experienced during the trauma. The goal is for the client to learn to examine negative emotions and thoughts about themselves and the world, and that they can safely experience these trauma reminders, and that the distress that initially results from confrontations with these reminders decreases over time. Additionally, it teaches the client that they can tolerate the distress without making it worse.