
"Trauma is not what happens to you... it is what happens inside you as a result of what happens to you." -Dr. Gabor Maté
A traumatic experience is an experience which overwhelms our capacity to cope and has real or perceived threat to our life, body integrity, and/or sanity, or the close proximity of the same to another person. After a traumatic experience, a person may struggle with post-traumatic stress symptoms or a diagnosis of a mental health issue, however, not all people may struggle with post-traumatic stress or a diagnosis of a mental health issue (many factors are related to this including our pre-existing vulnerabilities and factors of resiliency). Multiple traumatic experiences or chronic traumatic experiences may increase our susceptibility to experiencing post-traumatic stress symptoms or a diagnosis of a mental health issue.
What is Post Traumatic Stress?
For the purpose of my writing here, I am differentiating post-traumatic stress FROM Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Post-traumatic stress is a normal response to an abnormal experience because that traumatic experience overwhelmed our capacity to cope. It would be normal that in the immediate aftermath we may have some challenges getting back to normal life. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is considered as a diagnosis when these symptoms persist for over a month after the event and cause significant distress to multiple areas of life.
Post-Traumatic Stress may show up in many ways, from intrusive memories and nightmares or other sensory experiences, feeling on edge, anxious, hypervigilant, to feeling stuck, frozen, depressed, or numb, avoidance of anything related to the experience, changes in mood, difficulty connecting with people and many others. These experiences vary depending on the individual.
What is happening when we experience Post Traumatic Stress?
One of the key pieces of understanding post-traumatic stress is this idea of overwhelmed our capacity to cope.
When we are faced with danger, lack of safety, and stress; our nervous system gets activated from a calm state into life protecting states of fight, flight, freeze, submit, and/or attachment/cry for help. Different nervous systems will have different “go to” life protecting strategies based on previous life experience. The purpose of these strategies is to protect and save our life.
What sometimes happens when we have difficulties after a traumatic experience, is that our nervous system struggles to regain that experience of safety. This is a powerful learning that has been shown to make physiological changes in our brain. Our brain then continues to see danger, lack of safety, and stress, prompting our nervous system to continue to activate, even in objectively “safe” situations. Sometimes this resolves on its own as we are able to engage with safe people and safe environments. However, sometimes this cycle continues, strengthening as it goes, which leads to longer term challenges and the potential of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
You do not need to have a diagnosis of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder to benefit from trauma-informed therapy.
How do I work with Post-Traumatic Stress?
Some of my clients come in having experienced a very recent traumatic experience, and some of my clients come in having experienced trauma from long ago, which may still have some lingering impacts. There are similarities to how I work with all of these experiences.
First is starting to establish safety. This starts from the moment you connect with a therapist. We build safety in the therapy room together, from understanding the College of Social Work ethics of confidentiality to the ways that we interact. Through assessment and goal setting, I provide education about what I think may be happening and how we can work with it. As appropriate, we create safety through tools and interventions that you can practice on your own when these symptoms happen in your life between our sessions. This all happens in the present, and we may not even need to go into what happened to you.
Second is what we call resourcing. This is continuing to use tools and interventions in sessions and between sessions so that you feel you can start to manage a bit better in daily life. We may also look at what you might need in daily life to feel more connected, safer, and more supported. The idea is to feel more engagement in the present and more ability to navigate symptoms.
Weaved into these as appropriate is what we call integrating. This involves helping you to integrate what happened to you as a historical part of your full life experience. This may involve speaking about it, but that is not always the case. We may also integrate our experience through body sensations, emotions, and/or sensory experiences. Depending on the severity of symptoms and their impact in life, extensive resourcing may be needed before any integrating work.
Please note: this is a very rough idea of how I might work with clients. Each client is unique and so are their needs, goals, and therefore treatment plan.
Post-Traumatic Growth
I will never tell you that experiencing something traumatic was good for you or made you stronger. I do not believe this.
What I do believe through my personal experiences, through my work, and through the research, is that human beings have an amazing capacity to take terrible experiences and grow from them or create positive ripples in the world because of them. It may guide your professional calling or engaging in work that is meaningful based on your experience, it may encourage deep healing and connecting to yourself and others, it may change your life path in a way that you can make into a positive.
I do believe this is possible, however, I do not believe it is necessary or required for someone to feel more healed from their experience. I also believe that this is very subjective and is for each person to decide what this looks like for themselves.
More Resources
If you are interested in learning more about trauma, my favourite professionals knowledgeable in this area are Dr. Gabor Maté (trauma and addictions specialist, creator of Compassionate Inquiry), Dr. Peter Levine (wonderful research about the nervous system response to trauma, creator of Somatic Experiencing Therapy), and Dr. Janina Fisher (author and therapist informed in Structural Dissociation Theory and various other trauma informed therapies, highly relevant for complex trauma experiences).
If you would like to learn more or if you think that trauma therapy may be right for you, please connect with me on the main page of this website.
Samantha Hunt is a registered social worker who has trained in multiple trauma-informed therapeutic modalities and has 5 years of experience working with individuals with a wide variety of post-traumatic stress symptoms and experiences, including within inpatient treatment settings, healthcare settings, and now private practice.
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