Recognising Trauma Symptoms and the Impact on a Survivor
What is Trauma?
Trauma comes from a Greek root meaning to wound, tear or rupture. Historically, the word trauma was associated with physical wounds, like those sustained in road accidents or gunshot wounds. However, since the 1970s, following the development of the Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) diagnosis, trauma has become understood to refer to psychological wounds as well as physical wounds. This wounding in the brain's psychological processes is caused by the intricate God designed working of the brain. The Trauma Brain Booklet explains this process in more detail.
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It is part of the human experience to undergo experiences that are painful, difficult and challenging. No human being is immune to the experience of suffering. Likewise, the Bible is not removed from issues of suffering. Christian theology has been wrestling with the question of evil, suffering and hardship in the face of a good and loving God for centuries. Our Christian faith is firmly rooted in issues of suffering a trauma in the image of Christ on the cross, an event that was itself a traumatic event. Yet as Christians, we often try desperately to withdraw and remove ourselves from these issues. Often, Christian theology doesn’t sit well with the idea that somebody is a believer of Christ, saved and redeemed by God and yet living with the wounds of trauma. For Christian pastoral theology to truly be able to sit comfortably with and alongside a Christian trauma survivor well those within the Church must begin to understand trauma and its effects.
Suffering is the painful experience that happens to us in our lives; these can be anything ranging from childhood abuse, sexual assault, domestic and interpersonal violence, to a lack of appropriate care and love at a young age. Trauma theology recognises that while these experiences are painful and difficult, they are not trauma. Trauma references the wounding that occurs following these experiences and events. Therefore, suffering should be understood to be the cause of trauma and not the trauma itself.
The symptoms and behaviours we see in the lives of survivors are the direct effects of the trauma wounds left in the survivor's psychological processing following the experience of suffering.
The Six Trauma Responses
When a person lives through painful, difficult or challenging suffering experiences, the brain subconsciously activates one or more of the six involuntary whole-body danger responses. There are fight, flight, freeze, faint, fawn or flop. When activated, these responses, which are God-given and God designed, help the person survive and live through the suffering. Once the danger has passed and the person is no longer in danger, these responses stop being activated, and the brain can process the experience in the normal way.
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However, if the suffering experience is far too painful or severe, or if the person has had to endure too many suffering experiences, particularly at a young age, the brain is unable to easily settle down. This means the person is trapped in a state of high alert and hypervigilance. This leads them to perceive all new experiences from the place of being under threat. This leaves the survivor in a continuous cycle where one or more of the six danger responses are triggered and activated, even when there is no current danger. In this way, the six responses to danger have become trauma responses. This is a psychological wounding where all current experiences are experienced through the lens of trauma, and trauma has had an impact on how the survivor perceives the world, relationships, their faith and in turn impacts their behaviour.