Trauma is the state of overwhelm in which our internal or external resources are inaccessible, and we are incapacitated in response to extreme stress. Trauma is anything that is too much, too fast, too soon, too little, too late.
Though there are many classifications of trauma, and certainly many perceptions of what trauma might be in today’s culture, we can more adeptly come to understand that trauma can be defined as any occurrence(s) that exceeds a systems capacity to cope and has not been met with the support it needs to be integrated or re-integrated within the system.
We use the term system as trauma may be individual, familial, intergenerational, cultural, or collective.
Indeed, trauma may appear as any form of overwhelm and/or confusion within a felt sense of Self – physiologically, psychologically, or relationally. This overwhelm and confusion ultimately reflects the impact trauma has on our innate human assumption that the World is a safe, just, predictable place, and/or that we can trust Others to protect us when it is not.
Incidents may be simple, complex, or within the context of development. However, as above mentioned may simply be best understood as any experience that leaves us disorientated, disconnected, dysregulated, and in a state of dissonance – within and between Self, Other(s), and the World.
Incident(s) of trauma may include:
- Overt or covert abuse & neglect
- Violence, assault, or sexual assault
- Moral or spiritual exploitation
- Culture shock
- Bullying & Harassment
- Relational betrayal
- High conflict relationships
- Adverse childhood experiences
- Infertility
- Birth trauma
- Parenting
- Divorce & separation
Trauma is often identified within the medical field as:
- Complex Trauma (C-PTSD),
- Acute Trauma (PTSD),
- Attachment / Developmental Trauma,
- Intergenerational / Collective / Historical Trauma, or
- Vicarious or Secondary Trauma.
As Gabor Mate (2022) eloquently articulates:
Trauma is not what happens to you, but what happens inside of you… It is the constellation of hardships, composed of the wound itself and the residual burdens that our woundedness imposes on our sense of Self: the unresolved emotions that visit upon us; the coping dynamics they dictate; the scripts we unwittingly but inexorably live out; and, not least, the toll these take on our bodies.
