Why Avoidance Makes PTSD Worse — And How Trauma Therapy Helps You Break the Cycle
By Jessica Oliver MSW, LCSW | Aspire Counseling
Jessica Oliver is the founder and Clinical Director of Aspire Counseling, a trauma and anxiety therapy practice with offices in Lee's Summit and Columbia, Missouri. She specializes in EMDR, CPT, and trauma therapy intensives and has been treating PTSD since 2012.
If you've been through something traumatic, your instinct to avoid anything that reminds you of it makes complete sense. Your brain is trying to protect you. It learned that something was dangerous, and now it's doing everything it can to keep you away from that danger.
The problem is that avoidance doesn't actually protect you. Over time, it does the opposite. It keeps your trauma locked in place and gives it more power over your life.
This is one of the most important things we help people understand at Aspire Counseling. If you're living with PTSD—whether from childhood trauma, sexual assault, a traumatic loss, a health crisis, or something that happened on the job—understanding the avoidance cycle is the first step toward breaking free of it.
What Does Avoidance Actually Look Like in PTSD?
Avoidance in PTSD goes far beyond "not wanting to talk about it." It shows up in ways that can be hard to recognize because they often look like normal choices or preferences. But over time, those choices start shrinking your life.
Here are some of the patterns we commonly see in our trauma therapy clients:
Avoiding thoughts and feelings. You push the memory away every time it surfaces. You stay busy so you don't have to sit with how you feel. You might scroll your phone, overwork, or keep yourself constantly distracted—anything to keep the memories from breaking through.
Avoiding situations that remind you of the trauma. Maybe you won't drive a certain route after a car accident. Maybe you avoid hospitals after a health trauma. Maybe you stopped going to a restaurant or a neighborhood because it's connected to what happened.
Avoiding people. Sometimes it's not the place that's the trigger—it's the people. You might pull away from a friend you were with the day something happened. Or avoid anyone who reminds you of the person who hurt you.
Avoiding intimacy. For survivors of sexual trauma, this is especially common. Certain types of physical closeness feel unsafe, even with a trusted partner. Some people avoid all intimacy. Others avoid specific forms of it.
Avoiding sensory triggers. Loud noises, certain types of movies, particular songs, specific smells—your nervous system has linked these to the trauma and now treats them as threats.
Each of these patterns starts as self-protection. But over time, avoidance becomes the thing that keeps PTSD alive.
Why Does Avoidance Make PTSD Worse Instead of Better?
Think of it like a Chinese finger trap—those little woven tubes you played with as a kid. When you stick your fingers in and try to pull them out, the trap tightens. The harder you pull, the more stuck you get.
Trauma works the same way. The more you try to pull away from it—avoid the memories, avoid the feelings, avoid the reminders—the tighter its grip becomes.
Here's what's happening in your brain. When you experience something traumatic, your brain stores that memory differently than a regular memory. It gets filed as a current threat rather than a past event. Every time something reminds you of the trauma, your brain sounds the alarm as if the danger is happening right now.
Avoidance teaches your brain that the alarm was justified. Every time you avoid a reminder and feel that brief wave of relief, your brain learns: "See? That was dangerous. Good thing we stayed away." The relief is real but temporary. And the next time, the fear is a little bigger. The list of things to avoid grows a little longer.
Research confirms this. Avoidance is the strongest predictor of PTSD symptoms persisting over time. It's not that you're doing something wrong. Your brain is doing exactly what it thinks it should do to keep you safe. But its strategy is backfiring.
Your world gets smaller. Your anxiety gets bigger. The trauma's hold on you gets stronger. That's the avoidance cycle.
What Does It Look Like When Avoidance Takes Over Your Life?
At first, avoidance might seem manageable. You skip one road. You avoid one topic. You turn off one movie. But avoidance tends to spread.
A client who avoided the intersection where their car accident happened might eventually avoid that entire part of Lee's Summit. Then driving at night. Then highways. Then driving altogether.
Someone who experienced sexual assault might first avoid the place it happened. Then they start avoiding parties. Then dating. Then any situation where they feel vulnerable.
A person who lost a loved one to suicide might avoid talking about that person at all. Then they pull away from mutual friends. Then they stop answering the phone because they're afraid of bad news.
This is how PTSD gets worse over time rather than better. The avoidance doesn't just fail to help—it actively feeds the cycle. And the longer it continues, the more convinced your brain becomes that you truly can't handle facing what happened.
But you can. You just need the right support to do it.
How Does Trauma Therapy Break the Avoidance Cycle?
Going back to the Chinese finger trap: the way out isn't to pull harder. It's to lean in—gently, with support. You push your fingers into the trap, brace from the outside with your thumb, and then carefully guide your fingers free.
A trauma therapist acts as that outside support. We provide the structure, the tools, and the steady presence you need to lean into what you've been avoiding—at a pace that's manageable—so you can finally process the trauma and move forward.
At Aspire Counseling, we use evidence-based treatments that are specifically designed to address the avoidance cycle. These aren't general "talk therapy" approaches where you just discuss your week. These are structured, proven methods that directly target how trauma gets stuck in your brain.
Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) is one of the most effective treatments for PTSD, and it's the primary approach we use for trauma work at Aspire Counseling. CPT helps you identify "stuck points"—the thoughts and beliefs that formed during or after the trauma that now keep you trapped. Things like "it was my fault," "I can't trust anyone," or "the world isn't safe." Through a structured process, you and your therapist examine those beliefs, challenge them, and develop a more balanced understanding of what happened and what it means for your life going forward. Almost all of our clinicians are trained in CPT—including Jill Hasso at our Lee's Summit office, who is CPT-trained and passionate about using this approach to help adults work through trauma.
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) uses bilateral stimulation to help your brain reprocess traumatic memories. Many of our therapists use EMDR, and it can be especially helpful when trauma feels more body-based or when putting the experience into words is difficult.
We also have three therapists trained in Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT), which is designed to treat trauma and PTSD in children and adolescents.
For a broader look at all the treatment options available, our overview of evidence-based trauma therapies walks through each approach and who it's best for.
Do You Have to Remember Everything About the Trauma for Therapy to Work?
No. This is one of the most common concerns people have, and it stops a lot of people from starting therapy at all.
Many trauma survivors have gaps in their memory. This is especially true for people who experienced childhood trauma, repeated trauma, or trauma during a highly dissociative state. Your brain may have blocked certain details as a way of protecting you.
The good news is that you don't need a complete memory for trauma therapy to work. Your nervous system still holds the imprint of what happened, even when your conscious mind doesn't have all the details. Approaches like EMDR and CPT can work with what your body and brain already know. Your therapist will meet you where you are.
What Kind of Trauma Do You Treat?
Our therapists have years of experience working with a wide range of traumas. There is no trauma that is "too small" or "too complicated" to bring into therapy.
Some of the most common types of trauma we treat at Aspire Counseling include:
Childhood trauma. Abuse, neglect, witnessing violence in the home, or growing up in a chaotic or emotionally unsafe environment. These early experiences often shape how you see yourself and the world for decades—until you address them in therapy.
Traumatic loss. Losing a loved one to suicide, witnessing a sudden death, or experiencing a loss that was violent or unexpected. Grief and trauma get tangled together, and both need to be addressed.
Sexual trauma. Sexual assault, rape, childhood sexual abuse, or any unwanted sexual experience. We understand how difficult it is to talk about these experiences, and we create a space where you set the pace.
Health trauma. A serious injury, a frightening diagnosis, a traumatic medical procedure, or the ongoing stress of navigating a healthcare system that can feel dismissive or invalidating. Health-related trauma is more common than most people realize.
Workplace and on-the-job trauma. Law enforcement officers, first responders, healthcare workers, and others who are exposed to traumatic situations through their work. We also see people who experienced a traumatic workplace incident, workplace violence, or witnessed something distressing on the job.
Whatever you've been through, our experienced trauma therapists are equipped to help. We are true trauma specialists and treat PTSD every single day. All of our trauma therapists have specialized training in these evidence based trauma therapies, all either have years of experience or are closely supervised by experienced trauma therapists and all of us participate in a trauma therapy consultation group on a regular basis.
Does Trauma Therapy Actually Work? Here's What Our Data Shows
We don't just say trauma therapy works. We measure it.
At Aspire Counseling, we track every client's progress using standardized clinical assessments. For clients who came to us with PTSD symptoms, their scores on the PCL-5 (a widely used measure of PTSD severity) dropped from an average of 30.8 at the start of treatment to 14.09 at 20 weeks. That's an effect size of .93—which researchers consider a large, clinically meaningful improvement.
What does that look like in real life? It means clients who were having nightmares every night started sleeping through. People who had been avoiding driving for months got back behind the wheel. Clients who felt disconnected from everyone around them started feeling present in their relationships again.
We share this data because we believe you deserve to know that the therapy you're investing your time and money in actually produces results. Most therapy practices don't track outcomes this way. We do—because it helps us deliver better care and it helps you see your own progress.
What If Weekly Therapy Feels Too Slow?
For some people, the idea of doing trauma work once a week for months feels overwhelming—not because of the work itself, but because they want relief sooner. Avoidance is often strongest when people feel desperate to feel better but daunted by the pace of traditional therapy.
That's one of the reasons we offer trauma therapy intensives. Our CPT-based intensive program is one to two weeks long. You meet with a trauma therapist twice a day, complete daily homework, and have access to skill-building resources and meditation support throughout the process.
This concentrated format helps people make significant progress quickly. Many clients experience a meaningful reduction in nightmares, flashbacks, and avoidance behaviors within the first week. It's not a shortcut—it's evidence-based treatment delivered at a pace that matches the urgency of your symptoms.
You can read more about what the experience is like in our post on what to expect during trauma therapy intensives.
How Do You Get Started with Trauma Therapy in Lee's Summit?
If avoidance has been running your life—and you're starting to recognize that it's keeping you stuck rather than keeping you safe—that awareness is already a meaningful step.
You don't have to have it all figured out before you call. You don't need to know which treatment is right for you. You don't even need to be sure you have PTSD. You just need to be willing to reach out.
Call us at (816) 287-1116 for our Lee's Summit office or (573) 328-2288 for Columbia. You can also request an appointment online.
Our Client Care team will listen to what's going on, ask a few questions, and match you with a therapist who specializes in treating trauma. Every new client starts with a free 30-minute consultation so you can talk with the therapist directly and see if it feels right.
We offer in-person trauma therapy at our Lee's Summit office, our Columbia office, and online throughout Missouri. Whether you're in Blue Springs, Raymore, Independence, Grandview, or anywhere else in the Kansas City metro, we can help.
The avoidance made sense for a while. It got you through. But it doesn't have to be your only strategy anymore.
No pressure, no judgment—just compassionate support when you're ready.
About the Author
Jessica Oliver (formerly Jessica Tappana), LCSW, is the founder and Clinical Director of Aspire Counseling. She has been treating trauma and PTSD since 2012 and specializes in Cognitive Processing Therapy, EMDR, and trauma therapy intensives.
Jessica keeps several Chinese finger traps in her office. She reaches for one almost every time she's explaining the avoidance cycle to a new client. The analogy clicks for people in a way that clinical language often doesn't—the harder you pull away from trauma, the tighter its grip. Real freedom comes from leaning in with the right support. That principle is at the heart of everything Aspire Counseling does.
Jessica leads a team of trauma-trained therapists who work with adults, teens, and children across Missouri. Her team has experience treating childhood trauma, sexual assault, traumatic loss, health-related trauma, and on-the-job trauma for professionals including law enforcement and first responders. She is passionate about evidence-based care that produces measurable results—not therapy that goes on indefinitely without a clear direction.
About Aspire Counseling
Aspire Counseling provides specialized therapy for trauma, anxiety, OCD, and depression at our offices in Lee's Summit and Columbia, Missouri, as well as online throughout the state. Our specialized trauma therapists are trained in evidence-based approaches including EMDR, CPT, ERP, IFS, ACT and TF-CBT. We offer free 30-minute consultations to help you find the right therapist. Call (816) 287-1116 or reach out online to get started.
