Understanding Trauma and Its Impacts
Defining Trauma
Before we begin discussing the impacts of trauma, we need to be on the same page about the definition of trauma.
Trauma involves two things:
- A person perceives that an event or set of circumstances is emotionally or physically harmful or life-threatening to themselves or a loved one.
- This experience results in emotional distress.
Trauma overwhelms a person’s coping ability and makes it challenging to feel safe. Because people’s perceptions of events vary, what is traumatic for one person may not be for another.
Examples of potentially traumatic experiences include:
- Accidents
- Crime
- Natural disasters
- Physical, emotional, or sexual abuse
- Physical or emotional neglect
- Experiencing or witnessing violence
- Losing a loved one
- War
Understanding Trauma and Its Impacts
The impacts of trauma can vary widely from person to person. Some people may be seriously impacted by these experiences.
Trauma can cause long-lasting effects on people’s minds, bodies, souls, actions, and relationships. Many of these long-lasting effects are things you may regularly encounter in your ministry.
Growing in knowledge about trauma, its potential impacts, and how you may see them in your ministry is the first step toward becoming trauma-informed. The articles below will help you to gain this foundational knowledge.
Intergenerational Trauma: How Trauma and Its Impacts Can Cycle From Generation to Generation
We have previously discussed how exposure to trauma can negatively affect various aspects of life, such as mental and physical health, spirituality, actions, careers, and relationships. We have also covered the impacts of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), or...
How Trauma Can Lead to Substance Use
Recent statistics suggest that substance misuse and substance use disorder are prevalent in the United States. In 2020, an estimated 40.3 million people had substance use disorder. Only 6.5% received treatment (1) In 2021, about 107,000 people died of drug overdoses...
Lessons for Ministry from It Didn’t Start With You
Imagine that you are a therapist. A man comes in struggling with severe insomnia, which has spiraled into worsening depression and dropping out of college. He has been to doctor after doctor for treatment, but nothing has worked.
As you listen to the man tell his story, you discover that this all began soon after he turned nineteen. Soon after his birthday, he woke up in the middle of the night, startled awake by a cold feeling. He couldn’t get back to sleep because he feared that if he fell asleep, he would never wake back up. The man has nothing in his personal history that could explain these feelings.
Lessons for Ministry from What Happened to You?
The title of Oprah Winfrey’s and Dr. Bruce Perry’s book, What Happened to You?, represents the paradigm shift their book aims to create in the world.
In this book, Oprah, herself a trauma survivor, and Dr. Perry, a trauma researcher, converse about the research on trauma’s effects and how to be trauma-informed.
Four Things The Body Keeps the Score Teaches About the Effects of Trauma
The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk was the book that first taught me about the effects of trauma and helped me become interested in this topic. It is a great resource, so I recommend picking up a copy to learn more.
Trauma Statistics: How Common is Trauma Exposure?
According to trauma statistics collected by WHO, around the world, around 70% of people will experience a potentially traumatic event at some point in their lives (1)
How Trauma Can Negative Impact State-in-Life Vocations
The research on the effects of trauma on vocation has concentrated on the areas of parenting, marriage, and career, with no research on how trauma can affect religious or priestly vocations. Overall, trauma appears to potentially have adverse effects on the vocations...
Trauma and the Soul: Mixed Research Findings
There is very little research on the effects of trauma on the soul, especially from a Catholic perspective. Additionally, when research has been conducted, there have been some mixed findings on the relationships between trauma, religion, and spirituality. We will...
How Trauma Can Negatively Impact One’s Mind
Overall, when examining the effects of trauma on the mind, researchers have found that exposure to trauma can lead to various difficulties with mental health. We’ll dive into this research below.
The Potential Negative Effects of Trauma on the Body
When examining the effects of trauma on the body, researchers have found that trauma can lead to various difficulties with physical health, which we will discuss in more detail below. Before we begin any discussion about the effects of trauma, it is important to...