TARGET

Domain VI · Brief, integrative, trauma, hypnosis & coaching · Julian Ford · 2006 · UConn Health

What it is

TARGET is a strengths-based, present-centred, manualised educational and psychotherapeutic intervention for traumatic stress. It is used with adolescents (about 10/11 and older) and adults, individually, in groups, with families, and as a milieu (setting-wide) approach in juvenile justice, child…

Format

• Formats and dose
• Brief: 4 sessions (about 1 month). Time-limited: 10-14 sessions (3-4 months). Extended: 26 or more sessions (6 or more months).

Who practises it, and how they are trained or regulated

• Phases. The licensed manual's session order was not available. The phases below are built from the components the sources list, in the order the sources present them (education, then focusing, then the FREEDOM sequence, then application and consolidation).
• Version followed: TARGET (Trauma Affect Regulation: Guide for Education and Therapy), the seven-step FREEDOM version, as described by its developer (Julian Ford, UConn Health) and in the official programme profiles (NCTSN fact sheet 2026; CEBC entries for TARGET-A and TARGET for Adults). The default format here is individual therapy over 10-14 sessions (the time-limited format). Group, family, brief (4-session) and…
• PTSD symptoms are therefore treated as a survival adaptation that has outlived its context. The person learns a sequence of self-regulation skills (FREEDOM) to "re-set the alarm" and shift from reactive survival-mode processing to deliberate, value-guided learning-mode processing.

Evidence status, as the guide reports it

• The GIRLS randomised trial used 12 weekly one-to-one sessions with girls aged 13-17.

Questions to explore with your client

• What drew you to it, and what are you hoping it will change?
• Does it involve any substance, plant preparation, remedy or supplement? Has your doctor or prescriber been told, especially about any medication you take?
• Does it involve intense or unusual breathing? Have you been told about the medical conditions for which that is not advised?
• Does it involve fasting, a special diet or 'detox'? Have you discussed this with your doctor?
• Is it a group, retreat or community? How do they respond if someone wants to leave or raises a concern?
• Who runs it, and what training or registration do they hold?
• What actually happens in a session or meeting, and how often?
• What does it cost, and is there pressure to commit to more?
• How do you feel afterwards, in the hours and days that follow?
• Does it fit with, or clash with, the work we do here?

What practitioners of it watch for

• see 4.3. It is working when focusing reliably precedes the rest of the steps without prompting.
• activities becoming entertainment without a link to the skill. Always debrief. It is working when engagement rises and skills language appears.
• option lists that ignore real constraints (facility rules, unsafe home). Make options realistic. It is working when the client reports using a chosen option in vivo.
• literacy limits and privacy in shared living settings. Allow verbal reports, phone notes or drawings. It is working when records show the skills used in real situations.
• contagion of dysregulation, and peers triggering each other. Pause the group for a collective SOS. It is working when members coach each other with the FREEDOM language.

When to involve someone else

• New or worsening physical symptoms, or advice to stop or change prescribed medication: involve the client's doctor or prescriber.
• Signs of coercion, isolation from family and friends, escalating costs or secrecy: discuss openly and consider safeguarding.
• A crisis or thoughts of suicide: follow your crisis protocol. In the US, call or text 988; in the UK and Ireland, Samaritans on 116 123.

Drawn automatically from the guide's own sections. Stay curious: neither endorse nor dismiss what the client values, and check anything that matters against the full guide and its sources. Not medical advice.