Does time heal?

Sometimes. In fact, in most cases, the brain can make sense of the event itself, assimilating the event with pre-existing experiences and making sense of what happened. This is why professionals do not diagnose PTSD within the first 4 weeks of the trauma. Evidence suggests that in many cases, people can recover spontaneously within 4 weeks.

This process of spontaneous recovery can be helped by resisting avoiding reminders of the event. Talking about what happened and give yourself time and space to make sense of what happened.

In some cases, this spontaneous recovery does not happen and professional help is needed to ensure the event is fully processed and to fully alleviate the symptoms of PTSD.