The importance of counseling for traumatic events cannot be overstated. Trauma is something that can rearrange a person’s entire psyche if they do not process it properly. Trauma commonly comes in the form of witnessing death or being subjected to violence, but trauma can have many faces. It is also relative to each person. What is traumatic for one person may not be traumatic for another. Regardless of the type of trauma, it is very important that anyone who goes through trauma receives counseling to properly process their ordeal and cope with it in a healthy manner.
When trauma occurs, a person who does not receive counseling or fully adequate support will not be totally healthy from that point on. Trauma effects everyone in a slightly different manner, but there are some things about the effects of trauma that are consistent and predictable. A traumatic event becomes a memory burned into a person’s brain. It replays over and over in vivid detail, making the individual relive it repeatedly. Everyone plagued by trauma claims this experience and expresses a longing to make the memory stop replaying in their mind. Many traumatized people develop anxiety, post traumatic stress disorder or depression in response to their trauma. Sadly, many struggle with defeating this hardship without proper trauma counseling.
A person who does receive counseling or fully adequate support after trauma takes place, on the other hand, will have a much different long term response to the traumatic incident. They may initially experience the same things as someone who does not receive counseling because it is a natural part of processing trauma, but they will move on from these effects naturally with the help of a professional counselor. No one is naturally equipped to bounce back from trauma effortlessly. A mental health professional can walk a person through their trauma, back to a place where they feel safe and secure in their world again.