Thoughts on Trauma

02 Jul 2024 10:00 AM - By Jarrett Humble
Trauma. We hear the word get thrown around a lot. It’s become so overused or misused it almost carries no meaning. As a clinical mental health counselor, sometimes I don’t even like using the word because it feels cheap. Nowadays, people tend to use trauma to describe anything ‘shocking, distressing, or even slightly uncomfortable’¹.

There are probably a few reasons for this. Mental health awareness has been increasing over the years². But, there’s a lot of (mis)information out there online³. Trauma has become a commodity in a sense; it’s become almost fashionable to talk publicly about personal mental health struggles⁴. Effectively, trauma has become a buzzword that carries enough weight it's hard to ignore. (I’m looking at you Tiktok⁵).


But, the casual use of the term trauma is not the focus of this post. Rather, my intention is to discuss trauma in more of a clinical sense to help to provide understanding and — most importantly — share how we might treat it.

What is a trauma?

The kind of trauma I’m talking about is the kind that is not so casually shared. Rather, it’s the kind that is heavily guarded, locked away deep inside, with the hopes of being forgotten. It is the kind that shakes you to the core. The kind that can haunt you for years.


Trauma is fundamentally the body’s natural response to an overwhelming situation⁶. It is ‘the antithesis of empowerment’⁷. When someone is traumatized, their ability to regulate their nervous system becomes compromised⁸.


Trauma is stored in the body⁹, and might be better conceptualized physiologically rather than psychologically¹⁰. During stressful times, a healthy individual will be able to move between fight or flight and back to a state of safety. However, when someone has experienced a truly traumatic event, the nervous system can actually shut down¹¹. It is in these life-threatening instances that individuals become involuntarily immobilized. What I’m describing is the feeling of wanting to disappear or just not exist. Over time if left untreated, such trauma can result in avoidance behaviors, personality disorders, and insecure attachment¹².


There are several types of primary trauma¹³.

  • Type I trauma is understood as a ‘single incident shock’ that can bring about certain phobias (e.g., a car accident)

  • Type II trauma is relational or developmental trauma, typically at the hands of caregivers which can result in a fear of intimacy and insecure attachment. When left untreated, type II trauma can develop into maladaptive behaviors and/or addictions.

  • Type III trauma is complex and systematic trauma that ‘occurs when an individual experiences multiple, pervasive, violent events beginning at an early age and continuing over a long period of time’¹⁴. Such trauma can result in a general fear or aversion of the world.


For simplicity’s sake, we’re describing trauma in these three distinct groups. However, realistically trauma, like most things, might better be understood on a spectrum. It goes without saying, but trauma affects people differently.


In essence, trauma impacts an individual’s ability to regulate their nervous system, which in turn affects both body and mind. And when this happens, sometimes the nervous system needs help getting back online.

How do we treat trauma?

Part of my job as a therapist is to help traumatized individuals regulate their nervous systems and reconnect with their bodies.

A trained clinician can use a 3-part framework for intervention and resolution¹⁵. Such treatment might look like this:

  1. ensuring the client is safe and stabilized (both physically and emotionally)¹⁶,

  2. proceeding with the trauma memory reprocessing, and

  3. supporting the client in reconnecting and grounding themselves.


This first point is important. Truly traumatic experiences can be so devastating that revisiting them in any way becomes almost unspeakable. Sometimes it takes time to get to the point of being able to reprocess trauma. However, when we do arrive at the point, there are a few different approaches we might take.


I’m not going to cover all the trauma-informed therapeutic modalities here¹⁷. However, I’ll mention two approaches I’ve found to be the most effective in my personal and professional experience. Each could have their own post.

  • Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) is a treatment modality designed to reduce the distress associated with traumatic memories. It has a large body of evidence supporting its efficacy in treating PTSD and other traumas¹⁸. It’s currently the best way I know to treat trauma and a service I offer to my clients.

  • Neurofeedback is another promising approach to treating trauma¹⁹. I’m particularly fascinated with how neurofeedback is used to treat developmental trauma²⁰ and reach parts of the brain that would otherwise be very difficult to reach with traditional talk therapy.


Sometimes, trauma doesn’t heal itself over time. Sometimes, we need someone that can help us get our nervous systems back on track.


As a side note, I’ve been asked before my thoughts on the use of medication or other substances in treating trauma. My take is that many of the traumas we experience are rooted in relationships (type II developmental trauma); as such, healing comes relationally, as we learn to reconnect with ourselves and others. While ketamine²¹, psilocybin²², and MDMA²² have shown promise in treating PTSD for example, I tend to remain somewhat skeptical of pharmacologic options in treating trauma²⁴.


Final Thoughts

Sometimes people don’t know that they’ve experienced trauma, especially early on as a child. We might downplay these experiences. Sometimes the mind even blocks these experiences out of our conscious awareness as a means to protect ourselves. However, that armor comes at a price. It can isolate you from the world around you and starve you from feeling love. In my clinical experience, it is precisely this type of trauma that causes so much distress in life²⁵.


Trauma can be like a bee sting or a gunshot wound. One bee sting probably won’t be fatal, but if you had hundreds of them, the end result would likely be the same: a trip to the hospital. Sometimes traumas are small. Sometimes they’re big. The small ones can add up over time. But all traumas need a resolution.


I think it’s rare that a person goes throughout life unscathed by some kind of trauma. However, the caution is this: if you don’t take time to address past traumas, you may find yourself perpetuating them. The good news is that the brain can rewire itself, old patterns can fall by the wayside, and the body and mind can heal.


We can develop secure ways of relating to ourselves and the world around us. We don’t have to be defined by what has happened.


  1. Gregory, A. A. (2023, January 10). Are You Misusing the Term “Trauma”? Psychology Today. Retrieved February 8, 2024, from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/simplifying-complex-trauma/202301/are-you-misusing-the-term-trauma
  2. Johnson, A. L. (2021). Changes in Mental Health and Treatment, 1997–2017. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 62(1), 53-68. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022146520984136
  3. Wood, J. (2021, October 28). Managing mental health misinformation on social media. Penn Medicene News. Retrieved February 12, 2024, from https://www.pennmedicine.org/news/news-blog/2021/october/managing-mental-health-misinformation-on-social-media
  4. Chappell, B. (2024, January 31). Elmo takes a turn as a therapist after asking, “How is everybody doing?” NPR. https://www.npr.org/2024/01/31/1228145269/elmo-therapist-asking-how-is-everybody-doing
  5. Palus, S. (2021, October 6). Why TikTok is so obsessed with labeling everything a trauma response. Slate Magazine. https://slate.com/technology/2021/10/tiktok-trauma-response-why.html
  6. Levine, P. A. (1997). Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma. Berkley, CA: North Atlantic Books.
  7. Levine, P. A., & Kline, M. (2008). Trauma-Proofing Your Kids: A Parents' Guide for Instilling Confidence, Joy and Resilience. Berkley, CA: North Atlantic Books
  8. Porges, S. W. (2004). Neuroception: A Subconscious System for Detecting Threats and Safety. Zero to Three, 24(5), 19-24.
  9. Van Der Kolk, B. A. (2015). The body keeps the score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. Penguin Books.
  10. Nerd Nite. (2017, November 4). The Polyvagal Theory: the new science of safety and trauma [Video]. YouTube.
  11. Porges, S. W. (2011). The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological foundations of emotions, attachment, communication, and self-regulation (Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology). W. W. Norton & Company.
  12. Heller, L., PhD, & PsyD, A. L. (2012). Healing developmental trauma: How Early Trauma Affects Self-Regulation, Self-Image, and the Capacity for Relationship. North Atlantic Books.
  13. There are lots of other kinds of trauma, though: secondary/vicarious, tertiary, shared, community, intergenerational/cultural and transgenerational. However, these types of traumas are beyond the scope of what we’ll talk about today.
  14. Solomon, E. P., & Heide, K. M. (1999). Type III Trauma: Toward a More Effective Conceptualization of Psychological Trauma. International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 43(2), 202-210. doi:https://doi.org/10.1177/0306624X99432007
  15. Herman, J. L. (2015). Trauma and Recovery. New York City, NY: Basic Books.
  16. Peterson, S. (2018, March 29). About PFA. The National Child Traumatic Stress Network. https://www.nctsn.org/treatments-and-practices/psychological-first-aid-and-skills-for-psychological-recovery/about-pfa
  17. Sciarrino, N. A., Warnecke, A. J., & Teng, E. J. (2020). A Systematic Review of Intensive Empirically Supported Treatments for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. Journal of traumatic stress, 33(4), 443–454. https://doi.org/10.1002/jts.22556
  18. EMDR International Association. (2024, February 12). EMDR Therapy in Treatment Guidelines - EMDR International Association. https://www.emdria.org/about-emdr-therapy/emdr-and-ptsd/
  19. Panisch, L. S., & Hai, A. H. (2018). The Effectiveness of Using Neurofeedback in the Treatment of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: a Systematic review. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 21(3), 541–550. https://doi.org/10.1177/1524838018781103
  20. Fisher, S. F. (2014). Neurofeedback in the Treatment of Developmental Trauma: Calming the Fear-Driven Brain. W. W. Norton & Company.
  21. Ragnhildstveit, A., Roscoe, J., Bass, L. C., Averill, C. L., Abdallah, C. G., & Averill, L. A. (2023). The potential of ketamine for posttraumatic stress disorder: a review of clinical evidence. Therapeutic advances in psychopharmacology, 13, 20451253231154125. https://doi.org/10.1177/20451253231154125
  22. Khan, A. J., Bradley, E., O'Donovan, A., & Woolley, J. (2022). Psilocybin for Trauma-Related Disorders. Current topics in behavioral neurosciences, 56, 319–332. https://doi.org/10.1007/7854_2022_366
  23. Mitchell, J. M., Bogenschutz, M., Lilienstein, A., Harrison, C., Kleiman, S., Parker-Guilbert, K., Ot'alora G, M., Garas, W., Paleos, C., Gorman, I., Nicholas, C., Mithoefer, M., Carlin, S., Poulter, B., Mithoefer, A., Quevedo, S., Wells, G., Klaire, S. S., van der Kolk, B., Tzarfaty, K., … Doblin, R. (2021). MDMA-assisted therapy for severe PTSD: a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled phase 3 study. Nature medicine, 27(6), 1025–1033. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-021-01336-3
  24. Part of the reason is that currently, I’m not sure the mechanisms for healing are well understood. Apart from side effects, my concern is that a reliance on substances may become a way to numb the emotional pain, but not get to the root of the pain itself. Though, this topic is certainly worth exploring perhaps in a separate post; I don’t quite have enough confidence or knowledge at this point to form a solid opinion.
  25. Fast Facts: Preventing Adverse Childhood Experiences |Violence Prevention|Injury Center|CDC. (n.d.). https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/aces/fastfact.html
Tags :
Categories :