Psychological trauma or psychotrauma is harm from the impact of negative factors on the human psyche, which can contribute to the development of mental illness. Often, the presence of psychological trauma can lead to a person needing treatment for PTSD. Psychotrauma can be associated with physical trauma that threatens a person’s life or violates a person’s sense of security, which is accompanied by severe emotional shock.
Causes of psychological trauma
Some people reassure themselves that psychotraumas are not so terrible and they are not capable of affecting future generations. In fact, Swiss scientists at the beginning of the 21st century established that they affect the human genetic code and are inherited. There is indeed evidence that individuals whose psyche has been damaged are not able to give everything a child needs for psychological well-being and pass on their fears, pain, anxieties to him, and thus another generation arises with a traumatized psyche.
After all, what is psychotrauma? This is mental pain that harms health, or rather, leads to mental discord. This harm can be caused by internal or external circumstances, or by the actions of other people.
It is necessary to distinguish between psychological trauma and mental trauma, since they are far from the same thing. If we are talking about mental, this means that the person’s psyche has been damaged (severe trials), resulting in disruptions to its normal functioning.
If a person has a psychological trauma, then his psyche remains undisturbed, and he remains quite adequate and capable of adaptation in the external environment.
In the fight against psychotrauma, certain extreme conditions can distract an individual from experiences, but when the influence of extreme events ends, memories can return, that is, the traumatic event also returns.
The cause of psychological trauma can be the death of a loved one, a break in a relationship with a loved one, a serious diagnosis, loss of a job, etc.
People who have survived war, bombing, terrorist attacks, violence, robbery, along with physical damage, also receive mental trauma.
Clinicians and practicing psychologists who study psychological trauma name the main factors that most clearly characterize a traumatic event and cause psychological trauma.
The most traumatic and serious event for the psyche and emotional balance is always the threat of death, no matter for whom this threat is intended: someone close to the person or himself. Sometimes the threat of death even to strangers becomes a traumatic event for the psyche. Feelings of intense fear, helplessness and powerlessness in the face of circumstances cause no less harm. The peculiarity of many traumatic events is that they are extremely difficult and often impossible to predict and take control of.
Traumatic events can destroy confidence in safety and the possibility of a successful outcome, so such events make people extremely vulnerable and vulnerable. It is not at all necessary to take direct part in a traumatic event to receive psychological trauma; sometimes such an event simply concerns the individual very closely.
The features of psychological trauma, as identified by psychotherapists, are in many ways similar to the features of stress and stressful situations.
Many researchers of this problem believe that stress is a personal perception of what happened and the same events affect everyone differently: for some it’s just a nuisance, but for others it’s an annoying misunderstanding or a tragedy of their entire life.
Experts believe that for the formation of psychotrauma, both ongoing events and external and internal factors are necessary: the psychological make-up of the individual and the ideas formed at the same time about evil and good, about wrong and right, about what is impermissible and permissible, and so on.
Human reaction to psychotrauma
The main components of the symptom complex of psychological trauma: emotional, physical manifestations, problems in the field of personal and social realization/adaptation.
A person who has experienced or is experiencing psychological trauma may experience sudden emotional swings and mood swings: from oppressive apathy and total indifference to pronounced rage and uncontrollable irritability.
Feelings of hopelessness, melancholy, and sometimes guilt and shame for one’s weakness and indecision become dominant.
A person may avoid communication, preferring to withdraw into himself as the main way of spending time. He worries a lot and may experience fear that cannot be explained. He is overcome by a feeling of loneliness and abandonment. It can be difficult for him to maintain attention and focus on anything for a long time. Insomnia or intermittent sleep with overwhelming nightmares often occurs.
As a rule, a person has increased fatigue, muscle tension, and an accelerated heartbeat.
The duration of these types of symptoms can be completely different: for some it is weeks, and for others it is months.
While experiencing trauma, a person may feel relief. Symptoms, as a rule, weaken over time, but can arise in a situation where a person comes into contact with events, images that directly or indirectly resemble what caused the psychological trauma.
As already mentioned, the occurrence of psychological trauma, its strength and intensity largely depend on the significance of the event and personal characteristics, including stress resistance. The support of others and the timely provision of necessary assistance and treatment are also important.
Consequences of psychological trauma
Continuing injuries, catastrophic (massive) injuries, acute and sudden, can serve as a source of clinical conditions in which altered states that arise, for example, a post-traumatic effect with justification, can bring deterioration in health, withdrawal from following the norms of the individual’s social life (the possibility of self-affirmation, social prestige, respect for loved ones and surrounding people, etc.).
Psychotraumas can also lead to intimate and personal consequences on a biological and personally destructive level, and provoke psychosomatic diseases, neuroses, and reactive states.
The destructive power of psychotrauma is determined by the subjective significance of the traumatic event for the individual, the strength of spirit or the degree of his psychological security, resistance to life situations or other factors.
How to cure childhood psychological trauma in an adult yourself
It is almost impossible to cope with severe psychological trauma on your own. And this is complicated by the fact that a person may not even realize that he has it.
Psychological traumas of childhood
For example, adults often seek psychological help because they are experiencing negative experiences or because their behavior is unconstructive. They don't even realize that they need rehabilitation after psychological trauma.
Sometimes mental pain is so strong that a person does not even think about how to get rid of psychological trauma, but considers its symptoms to be traits of his character. It’s easier for him to come to terms with this than to face the need to reconsider his life and rethink many things. And fear of change prevents healing.
Only a professional psychotherapist knows how to identify and treat childhood psychological trauma in an adult. Most often, it is hidden in the depths of the subconscious, and only a specialist can understand what exactly needs to be worked on.
Types of psychological trauma
There are several types of psychological trauma. The first classification divides injuries into shock, acute and chronic.
Shock trauma is characterized by short-term duration. It always appears spontaneously, as a result of threatening events in the life of an individual and his loved ones.
Acute psychological trauma has a short-term effect on the psyche. Its appearance is associated with previous events, such as humiliation, breakup of relationships.
Psychological, chronic trauma is caused by a negative lingering impact on the psyche, does not have a pronounced form and can last for decades. For example, this is a childhood in a dysfunctional family or a marriage that causes psychological discomfort or physical harm.
The second classification identifies the following psychotraumas:
- trauma of loss;
— existential;
— traumas of one’s own mistakes.
- relationship trauma.
Existential trauma is a belief in a mortal threat or that something threatens a person and his loved ones. A characteristic symptom is fear of death. The individual in this situation is faced with a choice - to withdraw into himself or become stronger.
The trauma of loss refers to the fear of loneliness.
Relationship trauma appears, for example, after the betrayal of a loved one, and in this case, difficulties arise in the future with trust in people.
The trauma of a mistake is shame for what you have done or a feeling of guilt.
How does psychological trauma lead to mental illness?
It is important to note that psychotrauma is a possible cause of the disorder, and not the disease itself. There are traumatic events in every person's life. Many people were dropped by their parents in childhood due to an oversight, everyone was once frightened by the sound of a siren or a car horn, many had a kindergarten teacher or a school teacher who cursed and screamed - we all went through some traumatic events. However, not everyone experienced some type of psychopathology from these traumatic events. Why, given that the teacher screamed at everyone in the kindergarten group, did this event become traumatic for only one child, and in the future contributed to the development, for example, of depression? The fact is that events become traumatic and lead to mental illness in people who are genetically predisposed to this and who grow up in a negative family environment.
Psychotrauma is a general theoretical concept that does not fully explain the development of a particular disease or condition.
Psychotrauma is never an independent problem or the only cause of the development of a mental disorder. For example, the causes of borderline personality disorder are the organic component of the human brain, emotional instability, as well as destructive relationships in the family. Only in combination do these factors lead to the development of the disease. A child whose parents argue constantly is more likely to develop depression, provided that he or she has a genetic predisposition to this disorder. A certain factor becomes a traumatic event for a person and leaves an imprint on his behavior and perception in the future, and in the future can develop mental illness.
Many people believe that mental trauma is some kind of grievances, conflicts, quarrels. In fact, it is a serious psychological disorder that occurs as a result of an extreme event. About how stress affects a person and how you can avoid this impact. PostScience
Maria Padun
— Candidate of Psychological Sciences, senior researcher at the Laboratory of Psychology of Post-Traumatic Stress at the Institute of Psychology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, practicing psychologist, psychotherapist
Mental trauma, or, as psychologists say, mental trauma, is a condition that occurs as a result of a severe, extreme stressful event. Such an event necessarily involves a threat to the life or physical integrity of both the individual himself and other people, for example his relatives. In everyday consciousness, trauma is often understood as negative everyday events: grievances, conflicts, insults or mental breakdowns. Often clients of psychotherapists and even experts in this field incorrectly define this concept.
Trauma carries with it a certain risk of mental health problems. It is known that 20% of people exposed to an extreme event often begin to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. This is a conditional figure; it is, as a rule, typical for people who went through the war. Depending on what traumatic event people were exposed to, this percentage may vary. The most important and pressing question in trauma research right now is why some people can recover quickly after experiencing some kind of severe stress, while others develop post-traumatic stress disorder.
There are two types of traumatic stressors, that is, factors that cause stress. The first type is extreme single events. Examples include car accidents, robberies, assaults, and sexual violence, which are not repeated in nature. The impact of such stressors leads in the clinical version to classic PTSD with its main symptoms. These include the intrusion of traumatic experience, dreams, obsessive thoughts, avoidance of traumatic experience, in which a person tries to exclude everything that he remembers about the trauma, and as a result, he isolates himself from life entirely. These are also physiological arousals: reactivity, increased response to environmental influences. This agitation is characterized by nervousness and insomnia.
The second type of traumatic situations is repetitive traumatic exposure. Examples include military operations, residence in the territory of military operations, and repeated cases of sexual violence in the family. This is chronic traumatization, it is endured much more difficult by the individual, because in addition to the traumatic impact itself, the person also experiences its repetitions and lives in constant tension. Here the personality itself suffers, the system of its worldview suffers, the world for a person becomes hostile. Such repeated traumatic exposure affects self-esteem, self-esteem, the person perceives himself as weak and unable to somehow interact with the world around him, and ultimately this leads to the development of a personality disorder.
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What is psychotrauma
This is a certain life experience for which a person is not ready. The means of solving problems known to him are not enough or they are simply not suitable in this situation (“life did not prepare me for this”). As a result, there is a sharp and strong nervous excitement and energy exhaustion.
Psychotrauma is a deep individual reaction to an event that is significant for a person, causing strong mental stress and negative emotions in the future, which a person cannot overcome on his own. As a result, lasting changes occur in the psyche, personality, behavior and physiology.
Trauma can form as a result of a one-time influence of a specific stimulus or through a cumulative system as a result of regular, but seemingly traumatic events.
