What is Trauma?

In a day and age where the word trauma is referred to when talking about any kind of stress such as breaking a nail, losing one's keys or anything demanding, or uncomfortable, it may be necessary to clearly define what is meant by trauma from a true mental health perspective.

In Eliana Gil's book, Helping Abused and Traumatized Children, she defines it in light of the DSM-IV (the diagnostic Bible for providers) which looks at trauma as an event that is either actual or threatened to the person or witnessed by another. This includes serious injury, or death, learning about an unexpected death or a violent death, serious harm or injury of a family member or one close to the person (DSM-IV-TR: American Psychiatric Association, 2000).

One of the critical issues about trauma is that it is a debilitating loss of control that people, especially children, experience. This loss of control has a huge impact on the person and can be very distressing and overwhelming. This can last over long periods of time, coming and going, and seen in a variety of behaviors.

Children have a difficult time and are usually unable to modulate their arousal, process or categorize what is happening to them and their internal stress. They are not able to discern the impact of what has happen or what they may have witnessed.

Every person is different in how they handle a traumatic event and every situation varies in terms of internal and external support the individual has in helping to overcome their loss of control. How long the trauma occurred, how old the person was at the time, how intense it was, how the family and those close responded, the temperament of the individual, their coping skills, how quickly they were able to regain control, and other compounding effects all come into play when addressing trauma and healing.