Need to Talk About It?

The latest news can be a maelstrom of traumatic events: floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, tornados, terrorism, war, shootings—there seems to be a major catastrophe every month. And after each disaster, experts trained in debriefing rush to the scene telling survivors to talk it out if they want to recover.

Unfortunately, their efforts may actually make matters worse for survivors.

Talking may sometimes help—but not always. Those who deal with catastrophe frequently— like firefighters and soldiers— tend to be close-lipped, and that may be for good reason.

Some research suggests that talking can indeed sometimes do harm.

The Cochrane group, an organization devoted to reviewing research to help doctors and health care systems choose the treatments that are most effective, found no evidence in a review of 15 studies of “psychological debriefing” following a traumatic event that this procedure is helpful.

In fact, one study found that people who were given debriefing sessions immediately after a traumatic experience were twice as likely to develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) compared to those who received no treatment. PTSD is an anxiety disorder in which people can suffer flashbacks of the traumatic event, emotional numbness, irritability, pleasurelessness and sleep disturbances.

“The research pretty consistently shows that critical incident debriefing is at best inert and is potentially harmful for at least some participants,” says Scott Lilienfeld, Professor of Psychology at Emory University in Atlanta.