Trauma +
Vicarious Trauma
A traumatic event overwhelms a person’s sense of control, connection, and meaning. Further, the event overrides the person’s capacity to adapt. For those who have such experiences, trauma can negatively impact their mind, body, and connections to others. A traumatic experience can be a single event, a series of events, and/or a chronic condition (e.g., childhood neglect, domestic violence).
Traumas can affect individuals, families, groups, communities, specific cultures, and generations. Trauma generally overwhelms an individual’s or community’s coping resources, and it often ignites the “fight, flight, or freeze” reaction. Studies of trauma have also found that traumatic events and post-traumatic reactions often have a ripple effect—that is, they impact others besides the identified victim.
Trauma does not always cause PTSD.
But PTSD is always a result of trauma.
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) can develop following a traumatic event; however, not all traumatic events lead to the development of the disorder. After a traumatic event, some people will experience symptoms severe enough to lead to diagnosis of PTSD, while others will experience only some symptoms, and others will experience none at all.
The primary difference between reactions following a traumatic event and PTSD is not based on the severity of the event. Following a traumatic event, the mind and the body are in shock—and almost everyone experiences at least some of the symptoms of PTSD such as bad dreams, feeling fearful and anxious, or having constant, intrusive thoughts about the traumatic event. These are adaptive, normal reactions to abnormal events. For most people the symptoms will run their course and normal life will resume. This can take some weeks, but eventually the symptoms will decrease.
Research has shown that those who experience traumatic events and are made to feel that they are not alone in the immediate aftermath and who have supportive others around them as they process the event(s) are less likely to develop PTSD—when the symptoms don’t decrease and a person feels increasingly worse over time.
Types of Trauma
1. Impersonal Trauma: Random events: natural disasters, accidents, illnesses, injuries and disabilities
2. Interpersonal Trauma: Deliberately caused, committed by one or more persons, with planning and premeditation. All forms of victimization and exploitation, abuse, neglect, assault, sexual abuse, harassment, community violence, and bullying
3. Identity Trauma: Identity and personal characteristics including race, ethnicity, gender, disability, ageism, sexual identity or orientation, discrimination, mistreatment, harassment, bullying, violence and death
4. Community Trauma: Group trauma, historical trauma, colonial trauma, intergenerational trauma, related to one's membership in a particular-group, family, ethnic group, religion, tribe, political group, and belief systems thereof. Conflicts, violence, warfare, genocide ..... imprisonment, torture-limits to education, resources and basic human rights
5. Cumulative/Lifelong/Continuous/Complex Trauma: Multiple forms of trauma that are repeated, layered, and overlapping.
Other forms of Chronic Trauma:
Stress: Pile-up: Ongoing and cumulative trauma impacts, repeated trauma response activation TRA
Illness, Injury, and disability: Chronic stress, life-impacting, severe, permanent, terminal
Grief and Loss: Sudden or anticipated loss of loved ones, financial resources, religious or spiritual community, faith and belief, loss of innocence and personal self-regard, safety.
What are the symptoms of PTSD?
While everyone experiences PTSD differently, the symptoms present in 3 different ways:
1. Re-experiencing symptoms
The first set of symptoms involves reliving the trauma, feeling overcome when confronted with a traumatic reminder, flashbacks, nightmares as well as intense physical reactions to reminders of the event (e.g. pounding heart, rapid breathing, nausea, muscle tension, sweating)
2. Avoidance and numbing symptoms
The second set of symptoms involves avoiding activities, places, thoughts, or feelings that remind you of the trauma as well as lack of interest in activities and life, isolating from other people, or feeling emotionally numb
3. Arousal symptoms
The third set of symptoms includes things such as feeling on guard, irritable, being easily startled, hyper-vigilant, and experiencing difficulty concentrating. In addition to the symptoms outlined, sufferers of PTSD can often develop additional conditions such as depression, feelings of alienation, substance abuse, anger, guilt, shame or self-blame, suicidal thoughts, cognition problems, physical aches and pains, addictions, breakdowns in family life, divorce, social life, occupational instability, and difficulties in parenting.
Understanding Vicarious Trauma
Vicarious trauma (VT) was coined by Pearlman & McCann to describe the shift in worldview that occurs in helping professionals when they work closely with individuals, groups, and communities who have been traumatized. Over time, hearing the stories of folks suffering can lead to a permanent change in worldview for caregivers. Healthcare workers are particularly at risk for this type of trauma
Symptoms of vicarious trauma are similar to those experienced by individuals with direct traumatic experience.