A trauma is a situation that makes us struggle to that extent that it can no longer be managed, integrated or elaborated.
Traumas are usually caused by unforseen events, for which we cannot prepare mentally or physically.
Traumatic situations are those that endanger our mental and / or physical integrity. Traumatic situations can mean a threat to our own life or we can witness that the life of another person is threatened or in danger.
Losing our integrity means we have no choice and no chance to escape. Situations like this cause us a feeling of helplessness to despair accompanied by fears.
A trauma can be a single event or the continuity of a repeated situation that causes us a lasting impact.
Not everyone experiences trauma after experiencing the same events. A trauma in this sense is defined by what a person experiences and how we interpret what happens, not by what happens itself.
We may have experiences of images that come to out mind spontaneously in an intrusive way and that cannot be erased or avoided.
Traumas cause impacts on a physical-, emotional- and mental level. Depending on the situation and its severity and the age at which we suffered a trauma, the symptoms differ in their depth and impact.
Physical impacts of traumas can be shown through sleep disorders, bruxism, unexplained pain, stuttering, tics and involuntary gestures, eating disorders, etc.
It is seen that people who have suffered trauma are prone to develop addictions to substances, such as medicines, drugs, alcohol, but also to new technologies and online games.
Emotional impacts can manifest through widespread fears, panic attacks, high levels of anxiety, avoidance, social withdrawal, etc.
Mental impacts can show up in ruminations (chains of negative thoughts that start automatically and frequently without us realizing it), lack of self-esteem, insomnia, nightmares, obsessive thoughts (which revolve around one and the same issue), spontaneous appearance of mental images, negative fantasies, etc.
If we suffer Traumas they can cause the appearance of the symptoms explained above but suffering from these symptoms does not mean having suffered a trauma.
Developing a trauma or not depends on how “we take it”. Our vulnerability to suffering trauma or severe stress depends on a series of biological and personal factors that are summarized in the word resilience or resistance to stress. Not everyone who experiences a life-threatening event experiences trauma. On the other hand, there are events that happen on a daily base and leave an imprint on us, events that involve a high degree of suffering or interpersonal difficulty.
Something that happens that shouldn’t happen. It is this type of trauma that we commonly associate with the word trauma. They can be events of a very different nature such as natural disasters, accidents, assaults, violence, abuse, etc. We do also count under this category invasive medical interventions or surgeries or interventions that are accompanied by a lot of fear and stress.
These are things that should happen and don’t happen. This type of trauma is caused by a lack of attention, care, attention, affection and love that we should receive and do not receive. They are traumas caused by abandonment and loneliness that we experience involuntarily, sometimes going hand in hand with the best intentions of others. Here we find all the attachment traumas that affect our relationships. These are traumas that are more difficult to describe because we still don’t know what our reality would have been like differently, even though we suffer the effects and consequences of the trauma.
They are traumas that are suffered in the absence of signals to the outside world. Normally they pass in childhood and in situations of dependency to our reference persons. These are situations that lack the impact and severity of commission traumas. This type of trauma is characterized by repetition of difficult situations and conditions that are usually maintained over time. Types of hidden traumas can be devaluation, negativism, authoritarianism, manifestations of power, lack of respect for the person, threats, imposition of will, etc.
But also extreme and inappropriate upbringing styles such as unsuitable conditions for children are often sources of hidden traumas.
The signs of this type of trauma are frequent that are not recognized as such. They are situations that have formed our normality.
Hidden traumas often manifest themselves, for example, in extremely low self-esteem, generalized fears, insecurities, avoidance, and social fears. ials, etc.
Transgenerational traumas are a recent and fairly unknown approach. This type of thaumatization can occur when there have occured serious events in generations before ours. It is transmitted not through direct experiences but through climates and environments that occur when we are in contact with people who have suffered trauma. They are difficult to identify because nothing tangible has happened to ourselves.
We see that significant effects occur if people in generations prior to ours have experienced deaths of babies, murders, wars, holocausts, migrations under extreme conditions, escapes, violence of different types, abuse, neglect, abandonment, extreme poverty, loss of existence, etc.
Typical effects of this type of trauma can be the transmission of beliefs about life, life slogans such as “you can’t trust anyone”, “people are bad”, “life is a hostile place”, etc.
Our therapeutic approach to trauma depends on the type of trauma and the person’s individual factors. Therapy is always an individual and personalized process. We do validate your experience first. We hear you.
We rely on stabilization processes, psicological information, validation, bodily processes, and the elaboration of the different experiences that continue to be a source of anxieties and dysfunctional patterns.
Bilateral stimulation and EMDR as well as somatic processes are the basis of the process of our Trauma Therapy.
