Trauma- Big T, small t

While trauma does have a clinical definition that involves a certain set of criteria, it is widely considered in the mental heath field that any event that is upsetting enough to overcome an individual’s internal resources and that creates psychological symptoms that are last beyond a short time after the event could be considered to be traumatic.

EMDR practitioners identify the separation between life threatening events or events that are horrifying to witness/experience and situations in life that can generate a subsequent negative influence for a much longer period after they happen big T trauma and little t trauma. This does not mean that the trauma experienced outside of life threatening events is less significant. It is a way of allowing individuals that have had an experience that causes a debilitating reaction to self esteem, relationships or behaviours to acknowledge that they have also experienced trauma (small t).

There are many ways that an individual can be psychologically hurt and the integrity of their psychological structure can be damaged. Sometimes the reason may be obvious such as childhood neglect or bullying and sometimes its more subtle such as when mistreatment is a result of family, religious or ethnic culture.

Any experience that has led you to have feelings of fear, helplessness or dread/panic in the present moment, although the event may have occured a long time ago, is considered to be traumatic. Feelings of anger, shame, or guilt are residual feelings that we can pull apart and heal so that you can stop letting past events affect you negatively right now.

Trauma is personal and no one can tell you that what you experienced isn’t “real trauma”. I will guide you in a nonjudgemental and compassionate way out of your experience so that you can be free from the effects and move forward in your life.