This month on the blog is all about trauma – light topic eh? It may not be an easy one but I do think that it is an essential one to understand.
This post will help in setting the scene.
There are lots of different ways to understand trauma. Clinical diagnosis requires someone to meet strict criteria in order to be defined as experiencing a condition related to trauma.
But I’m not so interested in clinical diagnosis.
For me, trauma is like a lot of things about people – it’s on a continuum. There are traumas and there are TRAUMAS. What one person takes in their stride, another finds difficult and a third person finds traumatic. It’s a very individual thing.
Definitions of trauma are highly debated. However, these are my simpler ways of understanding the key terms you may hear.
What is Trauma?
Psychological trauma is where you experience an event or situation that is emotionally overwhelming. This is usually because you fear an end to your life. this may be literally, as in the case of death, or that you fear a significant change to your life, such as in the case of a divorce or your child dying.
Let’s consider the different types of trauma now.
Primary Trauma.
Primary trauma is when you personally experience a traumatic incident. It happens to you.
Example: You are in a car accident or you are physically assaulted.
Secondary Trauma.
Secondary Trauma is where you are traumatised because of work you do to support someone else’s trauma. It doesn’t happen to you but you have trauma symptoms as a result.
Example: A counsellor works with a client who has fled a domestically abusive relationship. He then begins to have nightmares about being followed and assaulted by the client’s ex-partner.
Vicarious Trauma.
This is similar to secondary trauma but is trauma that often grows over time from being exposed to lots of trauma from other people. The result of this continual exposure is seen in a negative change in one’s own thoughts and feelings. Through connecting with someone else’s thoughts and feelings, our own become negatively impacted.
Example: A social worker who continually works with women who have been sexually abused by men may develop a view that all relationships with men are ultimately risky.
Compassion Fatigue.
This is where a person’s sense of compassion for other diminishes as a result of having given too much of themselves to caring for others. Those who are tasked with meeting the needs of people around them, may find it hard to feel compassion. This is a way in which they may avoid becoming overwhelmed. For foster and adoptive parents, we may say that they are experiencing ‘blocked care’.
Example: Long term aid workers often speak of being immune to the suffering they see. In reality they usually aren’t, but being emotionally disconnected allows them to continue their work without being as effected by it.
Burnout.
Burnout is where a person is emotionally, physically and mentally exhausted as a result of providing support to others.
Example: the number of social workers and teachers who are signed off work as a result of attempting to meet the (often unrealistic) demands their roles place upon them.
Developmental Trauma.
Developmental Trauma isn’t yet a recognised diagnosis. I will write another post to explain it in more detail but essentially, developmental trauma occurs when a young child is exposed to difficult situations in the very early years of their life. These traumas then impact the developing brain and holistically effect them and the way they interact with themselves, their key adults and the world around them.
Example: Almost every fostered and adopted child I’ve ever worked with!
Complex Trauma
Complex Trauma is the diagnosis given to someone who has experienced, and is struggling with, a number of different traumatic events.
Example: Someone’s marriage ends and then their mother dies.
Triggered Trauma.
Ok, so this is my trauma term. There is a diagnosis many of you will have heard of called post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). It means that you have experienced a trauma but it effects you at a later stage once the traumatic event has past. For instance, when a returning soldier has nightmares and flashbacks after hearing a loud noise which triggered memories of his difficult war experiences. Some people though don’t meet the strict criteria for an official diagnosis so I find the term ‘triggered trauma’ more open to different peoples experiences.
Example: When someone you love moves away, this may trigger memories of abandonments you felt in childhood and have never really explored.
Trauma is a complex issue but I’ve tried here to make the terms used as simple as possible. As we work through this month these are the definitions I will be working with.
In honesty though, trauma is one of those things that is hard to define in words, and living alongside a traumatised child is so very difficult. This post I wrote about supporting children with trauma rages might also be of help to you, as well as my therapeutic books for both parents and children.
Alternatively, I would recommend these titles:
I hope that what is coming up this month will be really helpful to you and those you love.
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