COUNSED 250 · INTRODUCTION TO COUNSELING · UNIT 7
What Is Trauma, and What Do We Do With It?
Making victims and villains · Places we go when we’re hurting
What Is Trauma · First Definition
Trauma as Unheld Emotion
A painful, frightening, or overwhelming emotion — a feeling we can’t comfortably tolerate or integrate alone.
It becomes traumatic when it has no adequate relational home: no attuned person to recognize it, help contain it, and make it bearable or understandable.
What Is Trauma · Second Definition
Two Kinds of Events, Two Sizes
| Type of event | Capital T | Small t |
|---|---|---|
| Type A — events that happen that shouldn’t | Sexual assault, violence, crime, etc. | Bullying, microaggressions, getting our feelings hurt, etc. |
| Type B — events that should happen but don’t | Neglect from loved ones, lacking friends, not enough food or money, etc. | Missing affirmation, acceptance into a community, feedback, people who help us grow, training at work, etc. |
How This Differs From Cultural Talk
How We Use the Word
Is “trauma” used as an excuse? Is it kept only for the “really big stuff”?
When someone says “I’ve experienced trauma” or “I’m triggered” — is it a badge of honor, or a request to be sensitive to a wound?
How Do We Respond to Trauma?
Who Is Responsible?
The neglectful parents — or the adult child who has to live with what happened?
Is it the world’s responsibility not to trigger someone who has been hurt?
How Do We Respond to Trauma?
Four Ways to Respond
How Do We Respond to Trauma?
Our Trauma, Our Responsibility
If it is our trauma, it is our responsibility — even if it isn’t our fault.
It’s ok to not be ok, but it’s not ok to stay that way.
Places We Go When We’re Hurting
Anguish
An almost unbearable and traumatic swirl of…
Places We Go · Hope
Hope Has Three Parts
Knowing where we want to go
Being able to figure out how to get there
Having the agency or motivation to try
Places We Go · Hopelessness
When Hope’s Parts Go Missing
- No clear sense of where we want to go
- No way to figure out how to get there
- No agency or motivation to try
- Negative life events
- Negative thought patterns — especially self-blame
- Perceived inability to change our circumstances
Places We Go · Despair, Sadness & Grief
Despair, Sadness & Grief
Hopelessness about our entire life and future. When hopelessness and extreme sadness seep into all corners of our lives, we feel despair.
Linked to loss and connection — lost vitality, something expected, a sentimental belonging, a friend, wholeness. In both, we often want reunion with something, ourselves, others, or a familiar comfort.