Key Takeaways
- Emotional avoidance might help for a short time, but it can make PTSD symptoms worse in the long run.
- Therapy can help you understand and process your emotions instead of avoiding them.
- Try temporary distraction, like reading or talking to a friend, if your emotions are too strong.
Emotional avoidance is a common reaction to trauma. In fact, emotional avoidance is part of the avoidance cluster of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, serving as a way for people with PTSD to escape painful or difficult emotions.
Avoidance refers to any action designed to prevent the occurrence of an uncomfortable emotion such as fear, sadness, or shame. For example, a person may try to avoid difficult emotions through the use of substances or dissociation.
Avoidance Cluster Behavior
The avoidance cluster of PTSD symptoms involves efforts to avoid distressing memories, thoughts, or feelings, and external reminders like discussions about the traumatic event or encounters with people or places associated with it. These avoidance behaviors aim to escape situations and emotions triggering trauma-related symptoms.
Additionally, individuals who engage in avoidance may experience emotional numbing, such as feeling detached from others, losing interest in activities they once enjoyed, or struggling to experience positive emotions like happiness or love. Avoidance of emotional experiences is common for those with PTSD.
Emotional Avoidance in PTSD
Research shows that people with PTSD often try to avoid or “push away” their emotions, both emotions about a traumatic experience and emotions in general. In addition, it has been found that trying to avoid feeling emotions may make some PTSD symptoms worse or even contribute to the development of PTSD symptoms after experiencing a traumatic event.
Drawbacks of Emotional Avoidance
Emotions play essential roles in your psychological and physical health. They help you understand yourself and what’s happening around you. Emotions also motivate actions. For example, fear might indicate danger, while sadness might suggest you need time to care for yourself or seek support.
Emotional avoidance can temporarily suppress difficult emotions, but these emotions often become harder to ignore over time. Your emotions may intensify as they attempt to fulfill their roles.
If someone persistently avoids their emotions, they might resort to unhealthy methods like substance use. Avoiding emotions requires significant energy. As these emotions intensify, maintaining avoidance becomes more challenging, leaving less energy for important aspects of life such as relationships with family and friends.
Additionally, focusing all your energy on avoiding certain emotions can hinder your ability to manage other feelings, like frustration and irritation, making you more prone to feeling tense and angry. Research suggests that avoidance coping is linked to chronic worry.
Management and Treatment
To manage your symptoms effectively, it is important to develop healthier coping mechanisms that help you recognize, accept, and process your emotions. Therapy offers a space to express and comprehend your emotions and explore their underlying causes.
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Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
In addition to examining emotions connected directly to the traumatic event, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) may address how certain thoughts or ways of evaluating a situation may be contributing to your emotions.
Therapists who practice CBT typically focus on what is going on in the individual’s current life, rather than past events, and the focus is on moving forward in time to devise more effective strategies for coping with life.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), on the other hand, focuses on breaking down avoidance and helping a person place their energy into living a meaningful life (and being willing to experience whatever emotions arise as a result).
In order to produce psychological flexibility, ACT makes use of acceptance and mindfulness processes and commitment and behavior change processes.
Social Support and Self-Monitoring
Whichever therapy you choose, getting help can provide you with a safe place to express and approach your emotions. Seeking social support from trusted loved ones can also provide a safe way to express your emotions. Finally, writing about your feelings can also give you a safe and private way to release your deepest thoughts.
If your emotions feel really unclear or unpredictable, self-monitoring may be a useful strategy for you. It can give you a sense of which situations bring out certain thoughts and feelings.
Finally, if your emotions feel too strong, try distraction instead of avoidance. Distraction can be viewed as “temporary avoidance.” Do something to temporarily distract you from a strong negative emotion, such as reading a book, calling a trusted friend, or taking a bath. This may give the emotion some time to decrease in strength, making it easier to cope with.
Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read our editorial process to learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.
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