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RESEARCH & WRITING · THE WINESSING GAP
The cost of not being witnessed
When experience goes unseen, it does not disappear. It is carried: by the person, by the people around them, and eventually by the systems that were meant to respond.
By Zara O’Brien, psychotherapist · [DATE] · 6 min read
~31%
of refugees and asylum seekers experience PTSD, and a similar share depression (PLOS Medicine, 2020)
£51bn
annual cost to UK employers, with presenteeism the largest part at about £24bn (Deloitte, 2024)
22.1m
working days lost to work-related stress, depression or anxiety in Britain, 2024/25 (HSE)
Unwitnessed, witnessed: what changes
INDIVIDUAL
The cost. Silence, and symptoms carried alone. After migration, stressors such as isolation, unemployment and the asylum process are consistently linked to worse mental health.
The benefit. Experience is named, made sense of and met.
RELATIONAL
The cost. Families, colleagues and practitioners who see only part of the picture, or absorb distress with nowhere to put it.
The benefit. Room for difficult experience, and relationships that can hold it.
SYSTEMIC
The cost. Presenteeism, absence and turnover. Working parents’ worry about children’s mental health alone costs UK employers about £8bn a year.
The benefit. Around £4.70 returned for every £1 spent on mental health support.
Where the gap opens in your world
A person can do everything right after a life change. The paperwork is done, the language is improving, the job is secure. And still something goes unsaid: the grief, the exhaustion, the fear that nobody around them would understand. Nothing about that looks like a crisis, and that is the problem. What nobody sees, nobody responds to.
What the research suggests
Studies of trauma consistently link poorer outcomes to a lack of social support and to feeling unacknowledged. These are associations, but they point the same way.
What it can cost at work
Psychological safety, job satisfaction, absence and presenteeism all connect to whether people can say what work is costing them.
What changes when experience is seen
Witnessing is a skill and a structure, not a sentiment. It can be learned, practised and built into how a team works.
“What we go through needs a witness.”
Sources: UNHCR Global Trends 2026; Blackmore et al., PLOS Medicine 2020; Deloitte, Mental health and employers, 2024; HSE statistics 2024/25.