WHAT IS TRAUMA?
Overview
Trauma results from an event, series of events, or set of circumstances that is experienced by an individual as physically or emotionally harmful or threatening and that has lasting adverse effects on the individual’s functioning and physical, social, emotional, or spiritual well-being (SAMSHA TIP 57).Inter-personal trauma such as childhood sexual abuse (CSA) is an example of violence which without support and encouragement can prevent survivors from achieving a peaceful and fulfilling life. A high incidence of psychological, emotional, physical, social and relational difficulties are experienced by adult survivors of CSA including incarceration, violence, suicide, substance abuse, self-injury and a risk of becoming perpetrators of child sexual abuse. Self-blame, poor emotional regulation, emotional distress and utilization of maladaptive coping strategies were identified in incarcerated female CSA survivors; these symptoms are wide-spread among survivors of both genders (Johnson & Lynch, 2012).
Trauma, however, is not only experienced following sexual violence. Experiences of mass violence such as war and terrorism are also sources of trauma. In the video link above, Yerevan Saeed describes his childhood memories of the March 16, 1988 Gas Attack in Halabja, Iraq on civilians. Yerevan, who is a journalist and PhD student at George Mason University’s School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution in Arlington, VA, is now a husband and father of two children. The pain of these events some 30 years later is clear in Yerevan’s testimony.
Theorized as a loss of the assumptive world the events of 9/11 and more recently attacks such as the violence in San Bernardino and Florida have taken away many Americans’ feelings of security and freedom creating feelings of grief, anger and loss of control (Kauffman, 2002). Trauma-provoking events include torture, natural disasters, forced migration and displacement, separations of children and parents, neglect, accidents and injuries, health crises and long-term conditions of adversity like homelessness or imprisonment (Harms, 2015).