Loss and Trauma

 -“Ego Reduction” by artist Kanchan Balsé

Most of us will experience a loss or a potential trauma at some point in our lives. There is a great deal of misinformation in popular culture and the mental health field alike about proper coping with loss and trauma, when according to the most up to date research, humans have developed highly sophisticated coping capacities over time in an effort to respond to an unimaginable onslaught of threatening life events.

When our coping goes awry in the case of complicated or prolonged bereavement, we experience persistent and debilitating symptoms related to yearning for the deceased, intrusive thoughts and feelings about the deceased, avoidance of reminders of the loss, emotional numbness and excessive emotional reactivity to loss-related material. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy has been shown in research studies to be significantly more effective than other treatments for complicated grief.

With trauma, when we are faced with more than we can tolerate in the context of confronting aversive, life-threatening events, our ways of coping that once served us so well when responding to a threat may suddenly become excessive and prolonged once the threat ceases. For example, imagine encountering a bear in the forest: our adrenaline will kick into “fight or flight” mode. While it is healthy and effective to escape from a predator at top speed and to be on guard, fearfully checking over our shoulders in reaction to any sound in the forest, no matter how subtle, continuing to function as though we are being chased by a bear outside of the forest will take an extraordinary toll on us both mentally and physically. Research studies confirm the effectiveness of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (particularly, Imaginal Exposure) in treating Posttraumatic Stress Disorder.

My work with clients has confirmed how useful confronting the trauma in the context of a safe relationship with the therapist can be, particularly when combined with teaching the client new coping skills, and deepening the client’s exploration of their perceptions of the event.