Helping to Reconnect Counselling Services

Trauma

Traumatic experience includes a variety of different events that share in their ability to overwhelm an individual's internal resources and the natural human response to threat may lead to traumatic stress in the following days or weeks. Symptoms can get better as time goes by but sometimes they don’t and can start to interfere with daily life. When symptoms significantly interfere with daily living within a month after a traumatic event an individual may be diagnosed with acute stress disorder (ASD). If symptoms continue to interfere with daily life for more than a month then they may be diagnosed with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Trauma can be

experienced as a single event or can be multiple occurrences (complex trauma) that can impact mental functioning (ex. development of depression) as well as physical functioning (ex. greater risk for obesity and heart disease).

When a human is faced with a traumatic experience the body's main goal is to survive and protect itself, often broken down into fight, flight or freeze behaviours. While these behaviours are important during the traumatic event to keep us safe and alive, the continuation of this hyperarousal state can lead to difficulties when the threat is no longer present. It's common to see hypervigilance in individuals who have experienced a traumatic event as the body continues to protect itself by being prepared for additional threats. This hyperarousal is attributed to disturbances in sleep, muscle tension and sensitivity to threats that can lead to overreactions when a situation is perceived as dangerous but is really safe.

A pattern of increased arousal is one of the three major elements that make up a diagnosis of PTSD, the other two are repeated reliving of memories from the traumatic experience and avoidance of reminders of the experience. The reliving of the trauma constantly re-exposed the individual to relive their experience over and over, leading to behaviours to relieve this such as avoidance, withdrawal and substance use. Counseling and the use of interventions such as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) or Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing

Therapy (EMDR) can help individuals safely process their traumatic memories and teach strategies to help cope and manage maladaptive anxiety and fear.