New research shows that reflective writing that examines reasons (rather than feelings or sensations), is more effective than talking with a therapist to recount a traumatic event.  Reported by Timothy Wilson in Redirect: The Surprising New Science of Psychological Change (p.5):  Critical Incident Stress Debriefing (CISD), the standard police intervention for officers who have been traumatized, usually initiated as soon after the event as possible, was compared in a tight study with writing (after distancing from the event through time) about the reasons something happened. Here’s an interview with Dr. Wilson by the American Psychological Association.