What is trauma or a traumatic event?
We can differentiate between a physical and a psychological trauma. A physical trauma describes damage to our body like a broken bone or injured organ. A psychological trauma is described as an emotional response to an encounter outside our normal life experiences.
In Havening we work with the psychological aspect of trauma.
When we experience a situation which causes our body to store information about this situation as a trauma in our memory, consciously unbeknown to us our body collects all the information of the circumstances around this situation. And it is here where our senses come into the picture. I bet while you read this you are only aware of your feet because I just reminded you that you have feet, and you feel them right now. In a traumatic event our body unconsciously stores all the impressions it notices of the incident through smelling, hearing, seeing, tasting, and feeling.
When you look back at a trauma you will have a very distinct collection of impressions specific to this moment, what it felt like, the smell, what you heard, or what the light was like. These sensory impressions or memories become important. It is the body’s way of reminding us of what is unsafe for us.
In Havening we work with these reminders.
What might be a response to trauma?
A trauma is very individual and comes in all shapes and forms, here are some of the more common types of trauma: birth trauma, trauma after an accident, trauma through sexual abuse, trauma through emotional abuse, trauma through baby loss, deep seated grief, trauma through gas-lighting, trauma through medical intervention, re-traumatisation through court proceedings, trauma through a partner who is narcissistic, a situation you just can’t let go of, trauma through bullying in school or at work, deep shame and more.
People living with trauma might response with depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), phobia, an auto- immune disease, disassociation, gut problems, fibromyalgia, reoccurring unexplained physical pain, flash backs, addiction, the urge to self-harm, pseudo-dementia, Stockholm syndrome and more.