How Synchronicities Can Boost Well-Being and Trauma Healing

Meaningful coincidences can ease trauma and spark profound transformation.

Posted August 12, 2025 | Reviewed by Margaret Foley

Psychotherapy is complex, nuanced, and, as I've previously mentioned , not fully encapsulated by evidence-based psychotherapy techniques. Synchronicities, in particular, can be seen as meaningless experiences of chance that lack scientific validity because they are usually single experiences, which are difficult, if not impossible, to replicate, measure, or prove. As a reminder, synchronicity is an event in the external world that coincides in a meaningful way with the internal world of thoughts, feelings, images, sensations, memories, and dreams , but not due to causal reasons. The theoretical foundation for synchronicity draws heavily from Carl Jung, who introduced the concept. Jung's ideas help us understand how synchronistic events can influence people's lives, shaping personal growth and transformation.

In my 30 years of clinical and academic work, I have seen how synchronicity reflects a normal process of the psyche. This confirms what theory, research, and scholarship on synchronicity and related phenomena, such as coincidence, emergence , serendipity , and simulpathity , have demonstrated. For example, Bernard Beitman, a leading practitioner, researcher, and scholar on coincidence studies , has found that “need, life stress , and high emotion increase the likelihood of meaningful synchronicities , and these characteristics accompany most therapeutic relationships...synchronicities are likely to occur across the therapeutic spectrum.” 1

Synchronicity-Informed Psychotherapy and Personal Meaning

Despite these findings, synchronicities are frequently dismissed or overlooked, including their distinctive ability to catalyze both internal and external change. Working with synchronicities has been profoundly transformative for some patients, as I wrote in my previous blog post . In an approach I call “synchronicity-informed psychotherapy,” 2 I draw on theory, research, and scholarship related to synchronicity and related phenomena. For example, these sources suggest that synchronicities occur more frequently during archetypal human experiences that have strong personal meaning and emotional significance. They often accompany primitive mental states, traumatic experiences, and spiritual encounters. 3, 4, 5

Synchronicities typically defy rational comprehension, are linked to emotion, and are dependent on the person’s “active interest” and affects. 6 Guided by these findings, in my clinical work, I remain attuned to the emergence of synchronicities and engage with them as a legitimate way to inform treatment and cultivate change and growth. This is regardless of whether the patient believes in synchronicity or understands its importance.

With the activation of an archetype serving as the most important basis for synchronistic events, synchronicity-informed psychotherapy and psychoanalysis accept synchronicity as a normal—not preternatural—process of the psyche, one reflecting the workings of the unconscious mind. It expresses the often mysterious intersection of mind and matter, which Jung referred to as “ the psychoid .” One manifestation of the psychoid is having a “gut feeling” or “sixth sense.” You might think of the psychoid as the soil from which the physical and imaginal grow, while the gut feeling, sixth sense, or synchronicity is like a flower emerging from this soil.

Synchronicities Induce Positive Emotions and Trauma Healing

Synchronicity-informed psychotherapy anticipates and acknowledges that synchronicities will occur and serve a variety of functions. For example, they can break through our defenses and allow something new to emerge. They foster experiences that are linked to our values and positive affective states, including awe , wonder, and joy. Let's return to the monarch butterfly example I used in my previous post . In one case, a patient grieved his wife’s suicide . He was wracked with guilt , particularly when recounting years of conflicts, including their last nasty argument, hours before she violently ended her life.

Her sudden death was traumatic, and my patient kept cycling through images that kept him mired in grief and pain. The grief after his wife's suicide was immense, and the difficulty of healing trauma left him feeling stuck, struggling with self-esteem and overall well-being. Many people in similar situations experience a struggle to move forward, and the process of healing can be slow and challenging. But when monarch butterflies started appearing in his life and he mentioned them during a session, I noticed a change in his demeanor. He was more curious and present. I validated his subjective experience and feeling, invited him to share what associations emerged around the presence of monarch butterflies, and we explored their myriad meanings. But beyond working with his associations, I helped create a powerful experience that occurs when people notice synchronicities: It opens them to emotions such as curiosity, awe, gratitude , and joy.

When I asked him about the synchronicity, it wasn’t to paper over his trauma and grief. I wasn’t trying to erase his pain; I was asking him to notice, “What else is present besides the grief?” Due to cognitive bias , we tend to focus on the negative, but synchronicities can break through that bias and remind people that joy can reside alongside sorrow.

This is a powerful practice because opening to genuine experiences of wonder and joy can be just as life-altering as traumatic experiences. In the case of my patient, being visited by monarch butterflies gave him the courage and freedom to change his life. This profound life trauma required changes in his life that activated the archetype of transformation. He left an unfulfilling job and started pursuing a career more in alignment with his values. The monarch butterflies left an imprint that encouraged him to transform.

Maximizing Well-Being and Life Satisfaction Through Synchronicities

Synchronistic events can happen suddenly and unexpectedly and, depending on one's personal beliefs, can be interpreted as messages from the universe, the unconscious, spiritual guides, or a higher power offering guidance, hope, and direction. Synchronicity can cultivate connection with the self, but also with others. Another patient mentioned being visited by monarch butterflies after her husband just…disappeared during an environmental cleanup event. She landed on the belief her husband was telling her via the butterfly, “I’m free now. You are on your own independent journey. Trust your inner compass.”

She initially kept the butterfly visitations private, sharing them only in psychoanalysis. She didn’t share this with search and rescue operators, fearing it would undermine her credibility. It was important to appear “rational” and “professional” to get the best care she could for her lost spouse. After receiving disappointing news from the rescue worker, he called her back just to say, “I don’t know why I am calling you again, but I just saw a monarch butterfly and wanted to tell you in case that means anything to you.” This elicited tears of grief and wonder in her. My patient revealed this to the operator, and they connected over this awe-filled shared experience, and at the same time, held the grief that my patient’s husband likely wouldn’t be found because too much time had passed.

In a way, these synchronicities could be called “ glimmers ,” or moments of joy. Glimmers were first described by Deb Dana in her 2018 book The Polyvagal Theory in Therapy: Engaging the Rhythm of Regulation . She suggests glimmers activate the ventral vagus response, which hasn’t been validated by research yet, but regardless, glimmers (and in the case of my two patients, synchronicities) tie into how we can maximize life satisfaction, also affirmed by findings in positive psychology. Moreover, they affirm the research of Jordi Quoidbach et al. on emodiversity : that people who display a diverse array of emotions—both positive and negative—show better mental and physical health than people who express a limited or restricted range of emotions. 7

Synchronicity can bring a spark of awe, hope, curiosity, safety, and connection. It can comfort a patient and help them tolerate the negative effects that occur after trauma. As a depth psychotherapist, it’s not necessary for me to arrive at the same meaning as the patient (e.g., “the butterfly is my dead husband talking to me”); rather, synchronicity-informed psychotherapy creates a container in which something new—some form of creative emergence—can unfold for the patient. In these times where trauma runs rampant, synchronicity reconnects people to what else runs rampant: joy.

Beitman, Bernard D. 2021. “Synchronicity-Informed Psychotherapy.” Psychology Today, August 23.
Marlo, Helen. (2022). “Experiencing the Spiritual Psyche: Reflections on Synchronicity-Informed Psychotherapy,” Jung Journal, 16:4, 44-69.
Marlo, Helen, & Kline, Jeffrey S. (1998). Synchronicity in psychotherapy: Unconscious communication in the therapeutic relationship. Psychotherapy, 35, 1, 13-22.
Reiner, Annie. 2004. “Psychic Phenomena and Early Emotional States.” Journal of Analytical Psychology, 49, no. 3: 313–336.
Reiner, Annie. 2006. “Synchronicity and the Capacity to Think: A Clinical Exploration. Journal of Analytical Psychology 51, no. 4: 553–573.
Jung, Carl G. 1952/1969. “Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle.” The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche. CW 8.
Quoidbach, Jordi; Gruber, Jane; Mikolajczak, Moïra; Kogan, Alexsandr; Kotsou, Ilios & Norton, Michael I. (2014). Emodiversity and the emotional ecosystem. Journal of Experimental Psychology. General, 143(6), 2057–2066. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0038025

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Helen Marlo, Ph.D., is Dean of the School of Psychology at Notre Dame de Namur University, a licensed clinical psychologist, and a certified psychoanalyst (C.G. Jung Institute of San Francisco).

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This article is part of the Bringwise Psychology Journal — daily insights on human behavior, mental health, and personal growth.