Since sexual abuse is only one of many different kinds of trauma that people experience I would like to spend some time talking about traumas in general as they have many things in common.
Definitions of a trauma:
“Any experience that overwhelms a person’s capacity to cope.”
“Too much, too fast, too soon.”
“Trauma is in the body, not in the event.”
One of the things that was noticed in developing trauma therapy is that animals in the wild never get traumatized. This is despite the fact that they are regularly in life-threatening situations. It is thought that this is because they allow their body’s natural defenses to discharge the energy of a traumatic event.
There are 3 basic responses to trauma: fight, flight or freeze. Traumas are not distinct from each other but accumulate over time. When working with traumas you need to go slowly so that the person’s nervous system is not overwhelmed again. Telling the story from beginning to end with all the details will re-traumatize the person. It helps when we can notice that the traumatic experience is over. However, if during the traumatic event someone died or was badly injured it’s harder to feel that it’s over.
