Trauma ?

What is Trauma?

The word trauma (from the Greek) literally means wound, injury, damage by external violence.

Nowadays the word trauma is used to:

• To refer to the shocking event, the traumatic event itself, which leaves deep marks in the person.
• To describe the injuries that a person carries after experiencing a shocking, overwhelming event or being subjected to violence for an extended period of time.

The person has experienced this situation as a real threat to his personal integrity or to his life and has felt completely powerless and helpless in the face of this threat.

 

Types of traumatic stressors

• Impersonal traumatic stressors:

• Natural disasters, accidents...

 

• Interpersonal traumatic stressors:

• Criminal violence, rape, sexual harassment, war and terrorism.

 

• Attachment trauma (between the parent and the child).

• Abuse (physical, sexual, antipathy, psychological abuse, humiliation...)
• Neglect (physical, psychological, social, medical...)
• "Invisible attachment trauma" (The quality of the relationship between parent and child is insufficient to establish a secure bond).

 

 

Trauma is the experience rather than the exposure!

Trauma is that what causes dissociation (Howell,2020)

 

 

Trauma symptoms.

• Cognitive trauma symptoms:

• There may be a distortion in thoughts about oneself, the perpetrator, other people and the world in general.
• An explanation is often sought as to why such a thing happened, partly with the intention of gaining some control over life and making it predictable.
• Sometimes one starts to blame oneself and think one is bad.
• Certain thoughts can contribute to one losing faith and trust in God, justice, or a good future.
• Ideas about oneself (Internal Working Models) develop in four areas namely: self-worth/ safety/ responsibility/ competence.

 

• Physical trauma symptoms:

• Due to trauma, the body is perceived as unsafe:
  
  • The body is carrying the trauma.
  • The body is in pain.
  • The body carries the fear.
• Because of attachment trauma, there is an unsafe attachment to the body.
• Because of trauma, there is a splintered body.
• Because of trauma, the body is separated from the self.
• Symptoms: Stomachache, high blood pressure, back and headaches, rheumatic disorders, muscle aches, excessive sweating, hyperventilation, abdominal cramps and cardiac arrhythmias.
• Many psychosomatic complaints can be understood as anxiety equivalents.

 

• Neurological trauma symptoms:

• Traumatic events have the potential to cause a change in the functioning of the brain.
• The amygdala, which is considered the wake-up center of the brain, is under constant stress.
• A stress response follows with physiological consequences such as increased heart rate, accelerated breathing, increased blood pressure, increased vigilance...a state of hyperarousal.
• Or a reduced state of arousal (hypo arousal) arises from the increased stress and manifests as fatigue, passivity, stiffening of the body, closed off from reality...

 

• Emotional trauma symptoms:

• Fear, anger, shame, guilt, sadness, aloneness...are common emotional experiences.
• There may be extremely sensitive and exaggerated reactions to situations.
• Emotions are often dysregulated, sudden changes in feelings may occur, and sometimes there is difficulty dealing with negative feelings.
• Sometimes there is difficulty admitting positive feelings and happiness.
• There are difficulties in the regulation of emotions.

 

• Behavioral trauma symptoms:

• Avoidance of the memory of the trauma is common.
• Sometimes behavior that resembles the trauma-related behavior develops; the maladjusted behavior is imitated, so to speak.
• Avoidance of social contacts.
• Alcohol and drug use.
• Self-injury.
• Suicide

 

• Relational trauma symptoms:

• When attachment trauma is present, certain insecure attachment styles are adopted:
  
  • Insecure avoidant attachment style (in adult: reserved style)
  • Insecure ambivalent attachment style (in adults: preoccupied attachment style)
  • Disorganized style (in adult: anxious attachment style)
  • Infanticidal attachment style
• Relationally, one can get caught up in a traumatic bonding with the partner.
• The relationship may get stuck in the trauma triangle (perpetrator/victim/abandoning other)

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• Trauma symptoms in relation to forming a coherent self.

• No continuity in the experience of the self
• The self is not developed.
• The self is hidden.
• The self is fragmented.

 

• Spiritual trauma symptoms

• Loss of values and dignity.
• Loss of hope/ faith.
• Loss of future perspective and goal setting.
• Hatred and retaliation.