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What is "Trauma?"

 

Psychological trauma is the unique individual experience of a (single) event, a series of events, or a set of enduring conditions, in which:

 

The individual's ability to integrate his or her emotional experience is overwhelmed, and may impact one of some of the following:

 

• The ability to stay present

• The ability to understand what is happening

•  The ability to tolerate the feeling or comprehend the horror

  • The individual experiences (subjectively) a threat to life, bodily, integrity, or sanity."    -Saakvitne et al 2006 

 

When we're young, we have even less emotional and intellectual abilities to process painful experiences and can be easily overwhelmed. The ways that we develop to cope with that sense of overwhelm serve us well from experiencing something which feels too big.  Often, those strategies that we developed at young ages, such as disassociating, shutting down, distracting ourselves with other behaviors, or many others, become so ingrained that they continue long into our adult lives even when they cease serving us well and interfere with our relationships or living life as we would like. 

 

We help our clients discover the strategies that they developed early in life, often as a sign of the resourceful child that they were and then learn healthier ways to handle those feelings as adults. 

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Contact us today if you find yourself repeating behaviors that don't serve you well.  We'll help you find a new way.