The Science Behind Trauma | Deveshi
- hederahelixscience
- Jun 14, 2022
- 7 min read
We’ve all heard of it, but what actually is it?
I have decided to talk about trauma today because although it is a topic that is shunned on, so many people - whether they know it or not - have or will suffer with trauma at some point in their lives. As a result, it is a topic that interests me significantly and I wanted to research it more in depth to develop my knowledge and understanding. Emotional and psychological trauma is caused by extremely stressful situations that destroy your sense of security and leave you feeling helpless in a frightening environment. Examples of traumatic incidents include: car accidents, rape and natural disasters, to name just a few. Psychological trauma can leave you dealing with lingering negative emotions, memories, and anxieties and can also make you feel numb, distant, and untrustworthy of others. Shock and denial are also common reactions right after an event. Unpredictable emotions, flashbacks, strained relationships, mental illnesses, and even physical symptoms like headaches or nausea are all long-term effects. While these emotions are common, some people find it difficult to move forward in their life. Psychologists can assist these people in developing healthy coping mechanisms for their emotions. 1
Traumatic events frequently involve a threat to one's life or safety, but any scenario that leaves you feeling overwhelmed and lonely, even if it does not involve physical injury, can cause trauma. The subjective emotional experience of the event, not the objective conditions, determines whether or not an incident is traumatic. The more fearful and powerless you feel, the more likely you are to become traumatised. 2
There’s more than one!
There are three types of trauma:
Acute trauma results from a single incident.
Chronic trauma is repeated and prolonged such as domestic violence or abuse.
Complex trauma is exposure to varied and multiple traumatic events, often of an invasive, interpersonal nature.
But we need to go deeper…
To truly understand the topic of emotional and psychological trauma, we need to understand the unconscious mind, as trauma is usually pu
shed back into our unconscious minds in order to try and suppress the memories we were a part of, or witnessed. Sigmund Freud studied and discovered three levels of the mind: the unconscious mind, the preconscious mind and the conscious mind.
The unconscious mind is a vast reservoir of often unacceptable and frequently hard-to-tolerate thoughts, feelings, desires and memories. It is information we are not aware of and can’t access as it hasn’t been made conscious to us. This is done by the use of defence mechanisms, for example repression, denial and displacement, which protects the ego from these thoughts and ideas. It mainly consists of the ego, superego and ID (which in Latin, simply means “it”). The preconscious mind is information we make ourselves aware of, by thinking about it and it is not always held in the conscious mind. It mainly consists of the ego and superego. Finally the conscious mind is information that we know and that is accessible to us right now. It mainly consists of the ego.
Normally, these three levels of the mind are illustrated using an iceberg, where the unconscious mind is the ice submerged under the water and the conscious mind is the ice emerging out of the depths. The diagram on the right showcases this, and also showcases the ID, ego and superego. The ID exists right from birth and is the most basic, primitive, instructive part of the personality. It is the impulsive (and unconscious) part of our psyche which responds directly and immediately to basic urges, needs, and desires. Some examples include the desires for food and sex. The ID seeks instant gratification for our wants and needs and if these needs or wants are not met, a person can become tense, anxious, or angry. The ego is the rational part of the personality and its role is to balance the demands of the ID and the superego, and it does this by using defence mechanisms. The ego operates based on the reality principle, which works to satisfy the ID's desires in a manner that is realistic and socially appropriate. For example, if a person cuts you off in traffic, the ego prevents you from chasing down the car and physically attacking the offending driver. 8 Finally, the superego’s role is to help us understand what is right and wrong, and what we can and cannot do. One example is telling your child that they must wait until a lollipop is paid for before they can start eating it.
There are many defence mechanisms but the 5 common ones are:
repression
denial
displacement
sublimation
regression
Is it ever truly gone?
Touching on the defence mechanisms stated, repression involves keeping thoughts in the unconscious mind so they cannot be accessed. This means the ego does not have to deal with them. We can partially or completely repress entire events and it is often described as motivated forgetting, but is not a conscious action. One example of this is childhood sexual abuse which is frequently forgotten - the person will not deny it ever happening but simply cannot remember the abuse occurring, but with therapy it can be rediscovered.
Denial is the refusal to acknowledge threatening thoughts altogether. This is often how people respond to bad news, protecting the ego from unhappy thoughts. For example when patients learn of a diagnosis they may refuse to accept they have it. We may also deny impulses because they are likely to be socially unacceptable.
Displacement is the redirection of an impulse (usually aggression) onto a powerless substitute target; the target can be a person or an object that can serve as a symbolic substitute.
Sublimation is where socially unacceptable impulses or idealisations are unconsciously transformed into socially acceptable actions or behaviour, possibly resulting in a long-term conversion of the initial impulse. One example of this is, an individual who has a lot of suppressed anger grows up to be a professional wrestler where it’s socially acceptable to fight. Sublimation is actually very similar to displacement; however, it happens when an individual is able to displace their emotions in a constructive and socially acceptable way rather than destructive activity. 6
Regression is a return to earlier stages of development and abandoned kinds of gratification associated with them, triggered by dangers or conflicts that arise at a later stage. A young wife, for example, might retreat to the security of her parents’ home after her first quarrel with her husband. 7
The effects are ubiquitous:
Kimi is a 35-year-old Native American woman who was raped in a group while walking home from a suburban high school when she was just 16 years old. She describes how everything in her life changed on that day. “I never felt safe being alone after the rape. I used to enjoy walking everywhere. Afterwards, I couldn’t tolerate the fear that would arise when I walked in the neighbourhood. It didn’t matter whether I was alone or with friends—every sound that I heard would throw me into a state of fear. I felt like the same thing was going to happen again. It’s gotten better with time, but I often feel as if I’m sitting on a tree limb waiting for it to break. I have a hard time relaxing. I can easily get startled if a leaf blows across my path or if my children scream while playing in the yard. The best way I can describe how I experience life is by comparing it to watching a scary, suspenseful movie—anxiously waiting for something to happen, palms sweating, heart pounding, on the edge of your chair.” 3
How are children affected?
According to research, children are particularly vulnerable to trauma because of their rapidly developing brains. During traumatic situations, a child's brain is in a state of stress, and fear-related chemicals are triggered. Despite the fact that stress is a natural part of life, when a child is subjected to continuous trauma, such as abuse or neglect, the child's brain remains in this heightened state. In order to maintain and promote survival, the child's emotional, behavioural, and cognitive performance may be altered when in this heightened condition. These traumatic events can have a long-term impact on a child's behaviour, emotional development, mental health, and physical well-being.
The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) Study highlights the long-term effects of trauma on physical and mental health. The ACEs study is one of the most comprehensive studies of its kind, examining the links between childhood maltreatment and subsequent health and well-being. During a full physical examination, more than 17,000 members of a Health Maintenance Organisation (HMO) opted to disclose specific information on their childhood experiences of abuse, neglect, and family dysfunction. The ACE score is used in the study to quantify the entire level of stress experienced throughout childhood - it is a total tally of the number of adverse childhood events reported by respondents. The higher the number of ACEs, the higher the likelihood of developing alcoholism, multiple sexual partners, suicide attempts and smoking later on in life, among other negative health conditions. 4 and 3
Early ACEs, including abuse, neglect, and other traumas, have been shown to influence brain development and raise a person's risk of acquiring chronic diseases and other physical illnesses as an adult, as well as mental illnesses, substance-related disorders, and impairment in other aspects of life. Trauma experienced as a child can have serious and long-term consequences. When childhood trauma is not addressed, an adult's experience of fear and powerlessness persists, setting the groundwork for future trauma. One way we can reduce the effects of trauma is by attending counselling sessions or therapy. Freud believed that bringing the contents of the unconscious into awareness was important for relieving psychological distress. 5 Carl Rogers’ client-centred therapy is an important form of modern-day psychotherapy. It led to the general approach of counselling which is applied in many settings today. The client is encouraged towards the discovery of their own solutions as Roger saw the individual as the expert on their own condition, and therefore the therapy is not directed by the therapist.
Deveshi Abbott
Research:
1 https://www.apa.org/topics/trauma 3/1/22
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