Trauma victims are everywhere. Some don’t even realize themselves as such. Surviving, healing and understanding trauma has become a lifelong mission of mine. It is well understood it has complicated affects.
Clarity has been a good roadmap. A directional tool that has helped me to find my way. I am still navigating the shadows, through the healing process. Always reminding myself that my goal isn’t to quickly reach the end and feel fabulous but rather to enjoy where I am at and draw creative strength from current day to day struggles as I live them.
Trauma is the Greek word for “a wound” or “damage”.
Definitions of Trauma
- Any serious injury to the body, often resulting from violence or an accident.
- Any sudden and potentially life-threatening event
- An event that causes great distress.
- An experience or witnessing a life-threatening event that caused intense fear, helplessness or horror.
- An experience that is emotionally painful, distressful, or shocking and which may result in lasting mental and physical effects.
- An event outside normal human experience
- Situation involving an actual or threatened death or serious injury
- PSYCHIATRY: a painful emotional experience, or shock, often producing a lasting psychic effect and, sometimes, a neurosis.
- MED: a bodily injury, wound, or shock
Research is Limiting
The cultural imprinting with regards to trauma seems to be that it involves— early physical, sexual or verbal abuse, war, abandonment, poverty, class or racial or ethnic purging (‘ethnic cleansing’ or the holocaust), natural disasters and parental separation — and most psychological research studies have restricted themselves to event related trauma’s.
There is a general consensus however that definitions of trauma, and in particular developmental or on-going trauma’s, receive separate attention as having distinct psychological, physiological, and neurobiological affects on the sufferers. It is widely recogized that children process information differently than adults. A child suffering a life threatening incident such as the death of a parent or on-going child abuse will have different on-going reactions and symptoms compared to a war veteran. It should also be noted that a child’s grief pattern is different to that of an adult.
PTSD or post traumatic stress disorder is understood as an anxiety disorder resulting from trauma exposure. Not everyone develops PTSD as a result of experiencing trauma. Aquiring PTSD also depends on how the person initially responded to the traumatic event, how long the symptoms have been experienced, and the extent with which those symptoms interfere with a person’s life.
Clinicians and researchers have found that the current PTSD diagnosis often does not capture the severe psychological harm that occurs with such prolonged, repeated trauma. For example, ordinary, healthy people who experience chronic trauma can experience changes in their self-concept and the way they adapt to stressful events. Dr. Judith Herman of Harvard University suggests that a new diagnosis, called Complex PTSD, is needed to describe the symptoms of long-term trauma. Another name sometimes used to describe this cluster of symptoms is: Disorders of Extreme Stress Not Otherwise Specified (DESNOS).
Because results from the DSM-IV Field Trials indicated that 92% of individuals with Complex PTSD/DESNOS also met criteria for PTSD, Complex PTSD was not added as a separate diagnosis. Complex PTSD may indicate a need for special treatment considerations.
Related Readings
Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
Other Related Articles
- Childhood Trauma And Risk For ME/CFS Connected By Biological Link (fightingfatigue.org)
- Natural born heroes? (guardian.co.uk)
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