Understanding Trauma and Its Impacts
Defining Trauma
To begin understanding trauma and its impacts, we need to be on the same page about the definition of trauma.
Trauma is emotional distress that results from experiencing an event or circumstance that a person perceives is emotionally or physically harmful or life-threatening to themselves or a loved one.
This event or experience overwhelms a person’s coping ability and makes it challenging to feel safe. Because people’s perceptions of events vary, what is perceived as traumatic by one person may not be perceived as traumatic by 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
Sources
Understanding Trauma and Its Impacts
People’s reactions to traumatic events can vary widely due to many different factors, but some people can be seriously affected by these experiences. Experiencing trauma can cause long-lasting effects on people’s minds, bodies, souls, actions, relationships, and overall, their lives. The articles below help with understanding trauma and its impacts.
Emotions and Trauma
Overall, when examining emotions and trauma, researchers have found that trauma can negatively impact a person’s emotional life, particularly by increasing the amount of negative emotions one experiences and causing difficulties regulating emotions. Before we...
Trauma and Behavior
When examining trauma and behavior, esearchers have found that trauma can lead to some unhealthy and harmful behaviors, and they have found that often, these behaviors are ways a person attempts to cope with their experiences. Additionally, there is some research that...
Trauma and Gender
When it comes to trauma and gender, researchers have found that the effects of trauma can be different between men and women, especially in the areas of PTSD and friendships. We will talk about these findings below. Before we begin, it is essential to remember that...