Psychological trauma, mental trauma or psychotrauma is an emotional response to a distressing event or series of events, such as accidents , rape , or natural disasters. Reactions such as psychological shock and psychological denial are typical.
Longer-term reactions include unpredictable emotions, flashbacks , difficulties with interpersonal relationships and sometimes physical symptoms including headaches or nausea. Trauma is not the same as mental distress or suffering , both of which are universal human experiences. Given that subjective experiences differ between individuals, people will react to similar events differently. In other words, not all people who experience a potentially traumatic event will actually become psychologically traumatized (although they may be distressed and experience suffering).
Emotional and psychological trauma is the result of extraordinarily stressful events that shatter your sense of security, making you feel helpless in a dangerous world. Psychological trauma can leave you struggling with upsetting emotions, memories, and anxiety that won’t go away. It can also leave you feeling numb, disconnected, and unable to trust other people. Traumatic experiences often involve a threat to life or safety, but any situation that leaves you feeling overwhelmed and isolated can result in trauma, even if it doesn’t involve physical harm. It’s not the objective circumstances that determine whether an event is traumatic, but your subjective emotional experience of the event.
What is emotional and psychological trauma?
Trauma refers to your response following an event that psychologically overwhelms you, often resulting in shock, denial, and changes in the body, mind, and behavior. According to the substance abuse and mental health services administration (samhsa) , trauma is an event you experience as harmful or life threatening. It has lasting adverse effects on your mental, physical, emotional, social, or spiritual well-being. Trauma is typically associated with significant events such as physical or sexual assault, violence, or accidents. But it can also involve responses to repeated events, like ongoing emotional abuse or childhood neglect. Not everyone who has experienced a traumatic event will have long lasting effects.
According to the american psychological association (apa) , trauma is “an emotional response to a terrible event like an accident, rape, or natural disaster. ”
there are many myths about trauma that impede understanding and care. For example, there is a popular assumption that all childhoods are traumatic , which causes people to mistake ordinary hardship or distress for genuine trauma. While this view of trauma may seem initially validating of a difficult experience, it can quickly lead individuals to question their own experiences growing up and the adequacy of their caretakers. Another common misconception about trauma is that it will destroy your life forever. Some people who experience trauma assume the identity of a victim, expecting the world to harm them and seeing slights where they don't exist; this tendency has helped to create a culture of victimhood that does more harm than good by ignoring people's capacity for growth through challenge.
People of all ages can have post-traumatic stress disorder. However, some factors may make you more likely to develop ptsd after a traumatic event, such as: experiencing intense or long-lasting trauma having experienced other trauma earlier in life, such as childhood abuse having a job that increases your risk of being exposed to traumatic events, such as military personnel and first responders having other mental health problems, such as anxiety or depression having problems with substance misuse, such as excess drinking or drug use lacking a good support system of family and friends having blood relatives with mental health problems, including anxiety or depression kinds of traumatic events.