Why listening to traumatic disclosures sometimes fails and how it can succeed

Traumatic events often launch searches for meaning, which can be advanced through emotional disclosure. Listeners contribute to reparative disclosures by attending to and accepting their content, imagery, feelings, and meanings. However, engaging in such highly attuned “authentic listening” can disrupt listeners' own fundamental beliefs. As a result, listeners can experience secondary traumatization—the intrusive images, negative emotions, and meaning searches that resemble post-traumatic stress. Listeners sometimes avoid these psychic costs by responding defensively to speakers' stories, altering their meaning, or commandeering their expression. However, listening defensively might be reduced, and authentic listening sustained by bolstering listeners' psychosocial resources. Providing listeners with their own disclosure opportunities might be a particularly potent way to do so.