Trauma denial: How to recognise it and why it matters

It is a defence mechanism to put distance between you and an overwhelming experience, as your brain tries to adapt and mitigate a reality collapse or system overload, which happens after a traumatic event.

Trauma denial is helpful in the short term as it allows the survivor to get back on their feet. However, until you acknowledge and recognise trauma for what it is, you're denying your own experience and an ability to heal from it.

Trauma denial often occurs when the reality of the trauma is so great that it is psychologically safer to bury, deny, suppress, or avoid what happened than to accept that the trauma ever occurred in the first place.

The psychological function of denial is to push aside overwhelming information to buy you some time and give you room to breathe after a traumatic experience. This may be a conscious or unconscious process.

Denial distorts facts and events by ignoring the existence of the event, there is no admission of a problem (e.g. believing and acting like that traumatic experience didn't affect you).

Avoidance is an attempt to refrain from feeling painful emotions by withdrawing or dissociating from specific experiences (e.g. using substance to prevent thinking about the event).