What Is Trauma? Understanding Trauma and Its Effects

If you have ever wondered whether what you went through 'counts' as trauma, or why something that happened years ago still affects you today, this article is for you.

Trauma is not just what happened to you — it is what happened inside you in response; an imprint left on both mind and body.  Discover what trauma really means, the different types, and how it affects mind and body.

Psychological trauma is the unique individual experience of an event, a series of events or a set of enduring conditions, in which: The individual’s ability to integrate their emotional experience is overwhelmed and / or The individual experiences (subjectively) a threat to life, bodily integrity, or sanity. Saakvitine et al, 2000

A traumatic experience is one that overwhelms a person's capacity to cope — leaving the nervous system stuck in a state of alarm, even after the danger has passed.

Two people can experience the same incident and be affected very differently. That is not weakness; it is the nature of trauma.

What I particularly like about the definition above is that it highlights two different pathways into trauma.

The second part is what most people think of when they hear the word trauma: experiencing, or believing we are experiencing, a threat to our life, bodily integrity, or sanity.

The first part is perhaps more surprising: "The individual's ability to integrate their emotional experience is overwhelmed."

This simply means that what was happening was more than the mind and body could make sense of or cope with at the time.

Sometimes this is because we are very young. A child may not have the emotional understanding, language, or support needed to process experiences such as emotional neglect, unpredictable caregiving, criticism, rejection, conflict, or witnessing frightening events. What feels manageable to an adult may be overwhelming to a child whose brain and nervous system are still developing.

At other times, this can happen in adulthood. We may not recognise that we are being harmed because the situation has become normal, confusing, or difficult to make sense of. For example, someone living in a controlling relationship may minimise what is happening or tell themselves, "It's not that bad." Yet, beneath conscious awareness, the mind and body may be registering fear, uncertainty, or a loss of safety.

Trauma is not only about what happened. It is also about whether our nervous system had the capacity, support, and safety needed to process what happened. When that capacity becomes overwhelmed, parts of the experience may remain unresolved, continuing to influence how we feel, think, relate to others, and experience in our bodies long after the original situation has ended. 

Trauma can leave us living in yesterday's danger while expecting it to happen again tomorrow.