30/06/2021
Trauma is a bit of a buzz word, often overused so much so that everything becomes traumatic; but what does trauma actually mean or relate to?
◇Trauma is the emotional shock that someone experiences following an event that involves actual or perceived threat to one’s physical or mental wellbeing.
◇Trauma can also occur in response to witnessing or hearing about a similarly terrible event involving someone else.
◇For the event to be traumatic the person’s response must involve intense fear, helplessness, or horror and must overwhelm the normal coping mechanisms.
The shock from experiencing a traumatic event can have a physiological as well as a psychological impact.
Physiological meaning 'the body's physical mechanisms that respond when an injury takes place.'
Psychological meaning a mental response to an injury