Why should I see a therapist about trauma or grief when I can't change what happened?

Whether you’ve gone through trauma or lost a loved one, you might wonder why therapy would help.

On the surface, the question of why seeing a therapist would help, makes sense. If you can’t change or control what already happened, what type of benefit would you get from talking about it? Even more so, wouldn’t it be detrimental to talk about something painful like trauma or grief? Why not just leave the past in the past rather then revisit painful emotions?

Despite that logical train of thought, the reality for many people is that seeing a trauma therapist or a grief and loss therapist can ultimately reduce the emotional distress that comes with grief and trauma. Let’s talk about why:

1) Talking helps: Your brain can only bottle up so much before you start to feel overwhelmed with emotion. If for no other reason then to help yourself process with a trained professional, putting your feelings into words can help you come to terms with what happened in a healthy way. Let’s look at it on a spectrum. Let’s say there are 10 people who all went through the same traumatic event. Person #1 allows this event to define the rest of their lives because that they can’t go a minute of their day without thinking about it. Person #10 is on the complete opposite side of the spectrum by not acknowledging the event and refusing to come to terms with the fact that it happened. While two completely different ways of coping, both are equally unhealthy. The goal is to be person #5 on the spectrum. Person #5 allows themselves the time to feel bad about what happened but ultimately doesn’t allow this event to define the rest of their life. The goal in seeing a therapist and processing in a healthy way, is to be person #5. As indicative by the spectrum, it’s not the events that happened that defines how a person will be impacted, it’s how somebody processes the events that defines how a person will be impacted. Talking to a trained trauma or grief and loss therapist can help you process what happened in a healthy way.

2) Challenge unhealthy thinking: While time passing and talking about grief and trauma can certainly help, another factor that can help the healing process is identifying maldaptive thinking patterns. If there is irrational guilt, anger, shame or regret about the trauma or loss that occurred, this can negatively impact the healing process. A therapist who is trained in treating trauma and grief and loss can help you identify and challenge these maladaptive beliefs.

3) Getting validation and support: People who have gone through trauma or grief will often say things like “I feel like I’m going crazy” or “I feel like this shouldn’t be impacting me anymore”. Seeing a therapist and talking about what you’ve gone through can help you feel validated and get a healthy gauge for what the healing process looks like. It’s not uncommon for somebody going through the process of overcoming grief and trauma to be hard on themselves and their emotional reaction. Seeing somebody can help you challenge your perception of where you “should” be at.

With all that being said, remember that the goal isn’t to keep revisiting what happened for the sake of revisiting it; it’s to help you move forward with your life. A trained grief and trauma therapist can help you figure out how best to move forward. Often times, in addition or in contrast to the above, people will in fact benefit from learning distraction techniques and other healthy outlets to regulate uncomfortable emotions. There are no hard and fast rules for overcoming grief and trauma and everybody’s process can look different.

But know, that if you feel like what you’ve gone through is preventing you from living the life you’d like to be living, seeking treatment can help.