What is trauma?

• Can be a single event, complex, or developmental

Trauma can be

• Physical

• Sexual

• Emotional

• Poverty

• Neglect

• Separation

• Witnessing violence or substance abuse

Trauma

• An experience or prolonged experiences, and/or a threat or perceived threat to one’s wellbeing

• Daily coping mechanisms can be affected

• Subsequent behavioral responses to daily life may be filtered through this perspective

• Can serve as a filter or lens through which a person views the world

Trauma can be found to

• Change the structure and activity of the brain

• Decrease size/connectivity in some parts of the brain

• Impair the emotional/behavioral function of the child

Triggers

• Signals that act as signs of possible danger, based on historical trauma experiences and which lead to a set of emotional, physiological, and behavioral responses that arise in the service of survival and safety

Signs of trauma

• Reduced sense of efficacy

• Concentration and focus problems

• Apathy and emotional numbness

• Isolation and withdraw

• Exhaustion

Types of trauma

• acute

-Single, overhwhelming event such as rape, death, or natural disaster

• complex

• Extended exposure to traumatizing situations such as prolonged exposure to violence or bullying, profound neglect, series of home removals

• crossover

• Single traumatic event that is devastating enough to have long-lasting effects such as a mass casualty school shooting, car accident, etc

• secondary

• Process through which one’s own experience becomes transformed through engagement with another individual’s trauma

Mental health issues linked to trauma

• PTSD

• Separation anxiety

• Social anxiety

• Depression

• Suicidal ideation

• oppositional/ aggressive behaviors

Impact of trauma on learning

• Unable to access their critical thinking skills for problem based learning

• Unable to trust their environment

• Unable to self regulate, focus, learn from past experiences, or control impulses

• Difficulty forming/ keeping relationships, engage in unhealthy relationships, isolate themselves