Survivor's Guilt: Overcoming Remorse

by Stephen B.Chadwick, MA Counselling Psychology.
www.cowichancounselling.ca

Survivor guilt is typical in persons who have experienced a major (traumatic usually) event wherein they were the sole survivor or one of the few survivors. The after-effects mostly involve reviewing or going over the event(s) and while most survivors of the event consider themselves grateful  and fortunate to have survived, they are also often left with feelings of guilt, (over)concern about the the fate of the victims and the victims' families and like other survivors of truama, needing to understand why and how to put the event into perspective.

And this phenomenon applies whether it is a major catastrophe  or even it is just simply an organizational reshuffle or downsizing within a business, where an entire staff is let go and only 2 or 3 people are left.

In these situations, the survivors look to find meaning for their survival, sometimes to "justify" it in their own minds, to make an existential rationale for their survival and often to memorialize those who did not survive.