The last thirty years have seen a significant increase in research in the field of trauma exposure. Early interest in the area focused primarily on the effects of combat violence, with many writings devoted to the sources and impact of posttraumatic stress disorder, even before it had a name. Since then, however, subsequent studies have explored the impact other types of trauma and prolonged exposure to even moderate amounts of stress can have on a person's nervous system. The picture that emerged from decades of research offers a broader understanding not only of the sources and effects of trauma, but also the paths to recovery.
Defining Trauma
Medically, "trauma" refers to a serious or critical bodily injury, wound, or shock. While this is the territory of emergency room medicine, in psychiatry, "trauma" has assumed a different meaning. It refers to an experience that is emotionally painful, distressful or shocking, often resulting in lasting mental and physical effects.
When it comes to the physical after-effects of a bodily injury, wound, or shock, the connections are easy to grasp. Such events might result in chronic pain, loss of mobility or bodily function, or even leave physical scars.
Yet the ways in which the body is affected by emotional or mental trauma are less easy to detect. Experts such as Peter Levine, author of Healing Trauma and a pioneering researcher in the field, have spent considerable time identifying and defining these effects. Levine defines trauma not only as the traumatic experience itself, but as "the often debilitating symptoms that many people suffer in the aftermath of perceived life-threatening or overwhelming experiences." He suggests that trauma is the greatest source of unacknowledged human suffering.1
Levine also points out that trauma does not always result from one catastrophic event. The image of the "shell-shocked soldier," someone who suffers repeated barrages of violent, life-threatening events, is not inaccurate, but limited. Trauma can actually result from a series of less severe events that occur over a long period of time.2
Other experts in the field provide complementary definitions of trauma. Babette Rothschild, a Los Angeles-based clinical social worker describes it as "a psychophysical experience, even when the [event] causes no direct bodily harm."3 And the Diagnostics and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) offers confirmation of the conclusion of a majority of psychiatric professionals that "traumatic events exact a toll on the body as well as the mind."
Click here to read about trauma's impact on the body.
1. Peter Levine, Healing Trauma (Boulder, CO, Sounds True, 2008), 7.
2. Levine, 8.
3. Babette Rothschild, The Body Remembers: The Psychophysiology of Trauma and Trauma Treatment (New York, NY, WW Norton & Company, 2000), 5.
