What makes events traumatic?
Events are traumatic when they overwhelm the coping capacities of the person. Traumatic events threaten the physical integrity or life of a person and induce feelings of helplessness, terror or horror in survivors. After exposure to a traumatic event most survivors show some symptoms such as intrusive re-experiencing, anxiety, sleep disturbances, nightmares, and depression. Because stimuli that are reminiscent of the traumatic event tend to make these symptoms worse, people often start trying to avoid being exposed to these kind of reminders. In some people these initial symptoms may fade over a period of weeks, but in many people the passage of time will not lessen their symptoms and they will develop a Posttraumatic Stress Disorder.
Not everyone who experiences a specific event will develop a Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. Because children have fewer coping capacities they are more easily traumatized than are adults. Adults who were traumatized or experienced other adverse life events as children (such as death, incarceration, serious illness or substance abuse of a parent) are more easily retraumatized by overwhelming adult experiences.
People need to make sense of what happened to them as part of recovery. When traumatic events are shared environmental or man-made disasters they are usually remembered and talked about. When traumatic events involve betrayal by a parent, family member or trusted adult (such as a teacher or a religious leader), it may not be possible to talk about the experience and there will be a tendency to have psychogenic amnesia or other dissociative symptoms such as experiences of numbing or disorientation when stressed by cues that share some similarity with the original traumatic events.
Trauma Recovery
Recovery from trauma involves working through the impact and meaning of the traumatic experience. Specific types of psychotherapy have been shown to be especially helpful for trauma recovery. These include EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) and Prolonged Imaginal Exposure (which is a specialize type of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy). Some prescription medications can be helpful for managing symptoms of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. Alcohol, caffein, tobacco, and illegal street-drugs will not help and will generally make symptoms worse. While some trauma survivors do not get referred for needed treatment for long periods of time, the good news is that specific treatments are highly effective and that with treatment most survivors can make a full recovery.
How to find out more
One of the most comprehensive sources of information on trauma is at Dr. David Baldwin's Trauma Information Pages.
Guidelines for treatment of Acute Stress Disorder and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder are available through the American Psychiatric Association.
For a short list of books on trauma and recovery look on the resources page here.