What is Trauma?

According to *SAMHSA's (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration) Trauma and Justice Strategic Initiative,
"trauma results from an event, series of events, or set of circumstances that is experienced by an individual as physically or emotionally harmful or threatening and that has lasting adverse effects on the individual's functioning and physical, social, emotional or spiritual well-being".

Important points about trauma

  • Traumas can affect individuals, families, groups, communities, specific cultures and generations.
  • Trauma produces a sense of fear, vulnerability and helplessness.
  • Traumatic events are often unexpected. However, they can also often be insidious and predictable, causing many people to not even recognize them as traumas and often feel like it is their fault.
  • People can experience a trauma directly or they may witness, feel threatened by or hear about a trauma and be traumatized indirectly.
  • It is not just the event itself that determines whether something is traumatic, but also the individual's experience of the event.
Two people may be exposed to the same event or series of events but experience and interpret these events in vastly different ways. 
  • Various biopsychosocial and cultural factors influence an individual's immediate response and longterm reactions to trauma.
  • Even if an individual does not meet diagnostic criteria for trauma-related disorders, it is important to recognize that trauma may still affect his or her life in significant ways.
  • The first National Comorbidity Study established the prevalence of trauma in the lives of the general population of the US.
In the study (Kessler et al.,1999) 61 percent of men and 51 percent of women reported experiencing at least one trauma in their lifetime.
*SAMHSA is the agency within the US Department of Health and Human Services that leads public health efforts to advance the behavioral health of the nation.

Examples of trauma (not an exhaustive list)

Overt Trauma
  • serious injury
  • life-threatening experiences
  • sexual violence
  • catastrophic losses
  • sexual abuse
  • physical abuse
  • severe neglect
  • catastrophic or complicated birthing
  • miscarriage
  • humiliations
  • bullying
  • domestic violence
  • catastrophic accidents
  • products of nature (e.g., flooding, hurricanes, tornadoes)
  • witnessing any of these experiences

Less Overt (and highly impactful) Trauma
  • emotional neglect
  • lack of predictability
  • inconsistency 
  • feeling ignored or invisible
  • medical procedures
  • lack of healthy boundaries
  • enmeshment
  • role reversal (kids having to act as the parent to their parents)
  • overprotection (helicopter parenting)