2.1 What is trauma?
What comes to mind when you think of the word ‘trauma’?
Unfortunately, we come across so many incorrect notions of trauma through the media when in effect it is as follows:
Trauma describes an individual event, series of events or circumstances, which have lasting adverse effects on mental health, physical health, emotional health, social well-being and/or spiritual well-being (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), 2024).
You may find it helpful to look back at the origins of the word since ‘trauma’ is the Greek word for ‘wound’. Therefore, rather than referring to trauma simply to describe an event or series of events, we can refer to trauma more accurately as the wound or wounds that the event creates.
These wounds can be short-term, or long-term, but crucially many who have experienced trauma highlight difficulties in finding the safety and trust in others which might then help them begin to heal the scars left behind from traumatic experiences they have encountered.
‘Trauma is defined as an overwhelming experience that exceeds our capacity to make sense of it, no matter how resilient we are.’
Trauma and a trauma-informed approach