Trauma

Trauma is an extremely subjective experience. What may be traumatic for one person may barely affect another.  Trauma typically results when you experience excessive stress that overwhelms your emotional or physical ability to cope.  It can happen directly to us (e.g. rape, car wreck) or sometimes can indirectly affect us (e.g. witness to an act of violence).  While emotional trauma can result in the absence of any physical trauma, many times the two go hand-in-hand.  For instance, the wounds from physical trauma like the loss of a limb or a gunshot wound, while an obvious shock to the body, will eventually heal.  What the person is then left with, however, are the emotional wounds and repercussions of the actual traumatic event.  Psychological trauma can last for many years, and if unresolved, can even become more devastating than the original traumatic event.  Sometimes memories (old or new) from these traumas can be so disturbing that it can influence the functioning in our daily lives.

Another less understood form of trauma is called “complex trauma which can be formed through an ongoing series of similar painful events and can impact a person’s view of self, of life and others. Some people do not even realize that what they have experienced in life is even considered “traumatic” even when the symptoms are similar to others who have witnessed what may be more easily defined as traumatic. For example, individuals may have experienced emotional wounds of chronic abandonment and invalidation in close relationships throughout the lifespan and may develop trauma responses and symptoms.