"When people say time heals, they usually mean the passage of time, the rush of many things that happen. If enough new events crowd into our lives and capture our attention, we have no time to think of old pains, which thereby subside into a background gnawing. This is how we use time to dull pain, but it's not the same thing as healing.
Healing occurs as we express ourselves genuinely. In expressing how it was and is, we make ourselves the witness -- one who sees rather than one who has merely been tossed about by passing events. In reaching out to grasp a troublesome past, we cease to be at its mercy, and the more we reach to make ourselves a witness to the past, the less we are its victim."
-- Arthur Egendorf, Ph.D., "Healing from the War: Trauma and Transformation after Vietnam." (Egendorf is a Vietnam veteran, Army.)
