Therapeutic aftermath trap

The standard institutional response to mass shootings—immediate grief framing, universal counseling, and therapeutic narratives—can have the perverse effect of anchoring a victim community into a pathology narrative that suppresses resilience and obscures institutional failures, reducing adaptive recovery and accountability. — If dominant post‑shooting practice prioritizes therapeutic messaging over operational investigation and capacity repair, it reshapes public policy on emergency response, mental‑health resource allocation, and institutional accountability.