Why have a fact sheet on avoidance?

Avoidance is a common reaction to trauma, and it can interfere with emotional recovery and healing. It is understandable that individuals who have experienced stressful events want to avoid thinking about or feeling emotions related to those events. Research with a wide variety of populations (e.g., survivors of sexual abuse, rape, assault, and motor vehicle accidents) indicates that those individuals who try to cope with their trauma by avoiding thoughts and feelings about it tend to have more severe psychological symptoms. Because the research clearly suggests that avoidance can interfere with recovery and healing, this fact sheet provides an overview of this common reaction to trauma.

What does emotional avoidance mean?

Emotional avoidance in the context of trauma refers to people’s tendency to avoid thinking or having feelings about a traumatic event. For example, a rape survivor may try to suppress thoughts about her rape by forcing herself to think about other things whenever the thoughts arise, or by simply trying to push away thoughts about the rape. She may use emotional avoidance by stopping herself every time she begins to feel sadness about the rape, or by bringing her attention to something that makes her feel less sad. She may say things to herself like, “Don’t go there,” or “Don’t think about it.”

What does behavioral avoidance mean?

Behavioral avoidance generally refers to avoiding reminders of a trauma. An extreme example of behavioral avoidance would be for someone who lived in Manhattan to move out of the city after the 9/11 terrorist attacks to avoid reminders of the trauma. Less extreme examples might involve remaining in Manhattan but making sure to avoid Ground Zero to avoid difficult emotional reminders. Other examples would include individuals who try to avoid driving after they have been in car accidents, or assault survivors who go out of their way to avoid the scene of their attack.

Doesn’t avoidance help people cope with trauma?

Not when it is extreme or when it is the primary coping strategy. Many people were raised hearing advice like, “just try not to think about it,” “try to think about positive things,” or “don’t dwell on it.” These suggestions seem very logical—especially if you grew up hearing them regularly. However, although the desire to turn one’s attention away from painful thoughts and feelings is completely natural, research indicates that the more people avoid their thoughts and feelings about difficult life stressors, the more their distress seems to increase and the less likely they are to be able to move on with their lives.

Is all avoidance bad?

No, not all avoidance is bad. If you have experienced a traumatic event in your life, it can be extremely useful to learn ways to focus your thoughts and feelings on things that are not related to the trauma. This is typically referred to as “distraction.” Distraction is a useful and necessary skill that allows us to get on with our daily routines even when we are feeling very distressed. If it weren’t for our ability to distract ourselves, we would have difficulty getting on with our lives after traumatic life events. Our ability to use distraction skills allows us to go to school or work, buy groceries, etc.—even in the face of difficult life events.

While distraction and avoidance can be very useful in the short-term, they become problematic when they are the primary means of coping with trauma. When we caution against the use of avoidance, we are really cautioning against the use of avoidance or distraction as the primary means of coping with a trauma. If an individual were to avoid thinking about or having feelings about a trauma all of the time, they would likely have a much harder time recovering from the trauma.

“But if I let myself experience my emotions, I would be overwhelmed by them…”

One common reaction to the suggestion that people should allow themselves to feel difficult emotions is a fear that those emotions will overwhelm them. Sometimes people are afraid that if they start crying, they’ll cry forever. Other people worry that if they let themselves experience the anger inside them, they will lose control. Attending therapy with someone who is knowledgeable about trauma can be very useful for individuals who harbor these fears. For suggestions on how to locate a therapist in your area, go to the FAQ page below. This page contains information about contacting specialists and support groups for PTSD.