Skip to main content

Know Someone Who's Coping With Trauma? Here's How To Support Them [mindbodygreen.com]

 

What makes an event traumatic? Historically, trauma was believed to be a result of going to war and reserved for soldiers who presented with a collection of symptoms labeled as PTSD. However, using a diagnosis to help us understand the phenomenon of trauma is misleading, as many people experience trauma and post-traumatic stress without meeting criteria for a psychological disorder.

Current events have opened the door to a broader conversation about trauma and how many of us are exposed to it. Recent studies estimate that 70 percent of Americans have experienced a traumatic event at least once in their lives. Despite this, trauma can still feel mystifying. I offer my patients this explanation: Trauma is any event or experience that overwhelms the brain’s ability to cope and shapes our beliefs or behaviors going forward. Even more simply, it is anything that causes an individual deep distress during and/or after the event has taken place.

With this in mind, we begin to understand that trauma can encompass a wide range of human experiences. Some may be more familiar, like a breakup, one's parents' divorce, or various forms of developmental trauma. Others may be more shocking, such as natural disasters, major accidents, assault, and interpersonal violence. Ultimately, trauma is less about what happened and more about one’s subjective experience of it.

[For more on this story by Alison Stone, go to https://www.mindbodygreen.com/...s-coping-with-trauma]

Add Comment

Comments (0)

Post
Copyright Β© 2023, PACEsConnection. All rights reserved.
×
×
×
×
Link copied to your clipboard.
×