Talking About the Unthinkable: Neurotrauma and the “Catastrophic Reaction”

For most people, the experience of a serious and unexpected disease or injury is catastrophic. Sudden sickness or disability usually comes with fundamental changes, throwing one into a new and unknown reality. The experience of living in this overwhelming new reality often leads to an existential crisis; all of a sudden former ways of understanding one’s self and the world are no longer adequate, but new ways seem impossible to come by.