How do you define trauma?
and why is it so misunderstood even though it’s so widespread it’s a deepquestion because on the one hand uh promise sometimes you somewhat Loosely and promiscuouslyto refer to things that are not traumatic so people will have a difficult experience to say I wastraumatized no they weren’t they just had a difficult experience and this is one of my colleagues pointsout all trauma is stressful but not every stress is traumatic so sometimes people use the word to refer todifficult experiences which is not the same as being traumatized and on the other hand where it really matters whichis in the area of Health that you and I are both concerned in whether it’s physical or mental health trauma is notunderstood nearly enough or used nearly enough so that to my mind a lot of conditions of mind and body are actuallyvery much trauma related without the healing profession particularly the medical profession actually recognizingit so trombadan is it comes in a Greek word for wounding drum is a wound it’s apsychic wound that leaves a scar it leaves an imprint in your nervous systemin your body in your psyche and then shows up in multiple ways that are nothelpful to you later on so and it’s in its basic sense trauma is a psychicwound and if you look at the nature of a wound um on the one hand if it’s raw and openit really hurts so when somebody touches that wound that you sustained a long time ago but it hasn’t healed yet you’ll reactlike you’re just being tormented all over again this happens in relationships all the time on the other handuh wounds scar over and the scar tissue has certain features is very hard it’srigid so it’s not flexible so people tend to be rigid when they traumatizedit also doesn’t grow so trauma very often stops emotional growth and developmentis very raw and painful on the other hand it’s even lacks sensation becauseScar Tissue doesn’t have nerve endings in it the trauma then just to finish is not what happened to you so trauma is notthe difficult incidence like trauma is not the war it’s not the in my case the second world war when Iwas born or what happened to me Brahma is not the abuse that people experienced drama is not thepain that they felt trauma is the wound that is sustained as a resultso the term wasn’t for example the sexual abuse Thomas was the wound thatthe person sustained as a result of having been abused that’s the good news Jay becausehe promised the wound that we sustained it can be healed at any time if trauma is what happened to me 75 years ago or78 years ago it happened it never not will have happened you know the the partition of Indiawounded a lot of people but it never would it’ll never not have happened butif the wound is what happened to people inside is the result that can be healed hmm that’s probably the bestdifferentiator that I’ve heard and you’re right it is good news because itmeans we can’t heal it exactly what do you think of the biggest going the opposite way we’re talking about a woundand I want to come back to that but going the opposite way how would you then Define healing
