What is psychological trauma?
Psychological trauma is defined as an injury to the mind or psyche resulting from a stressful event. Trauma is most often the amount of stress that overwhelms a person's ability to respond and integrate emotions from an experience that produces feelings of helplessness. Psychological trauma can occur as a result of a single experience that causes deep suffering, or it can be the result of several overwhelming events that span several weeks, years, or even decades. In these situations the person has to struggle to cope with the immediate circumstances and eventually there are long-term negative consequences.
Although there are no objective criteria for assessing events that can lead to post-traumatic symptoms, most often the circumstances that lead to psychological trauma include betrayal, loss of control, helplessness, abuse of power, pain, confusion, or loss. . Each person perceives differently and personally the traumatic situations that generate post-traumatic symptoms. A post-traumatic symptom is most often defined by the person's response and not by the one that triggers that symptom.
Symptoms in psychological trauma
The symptoms associated with psychological trauma are very diverse, but there are also certain symptoms considered to be basic and common. These include both emotional and physical symptoms, as well as psychological disorders. The symptoms are practically how each person responds to a traumatic event.
Thus, in the case of emotional symptoms we find sadness, anger, denial, fear or shame, and these emotional symptoms can lead to nightmares and insomnia, but also to difficulty in relationships or even the appearance of emotional outbursts. Common physical symptoms attributed to psychological trauma include nausea, dizziness, changes in sleep, changes in appetite, headaches and various gastrointestinal problems. To these symptoms can be added the psychological ones, among which we find post-traumatic stress disorders, depression, anxiety, dissociative disorders or various problems with substance abuse.
Symptoms that last more than a month severely affect people's ability to function and so we can talk about the occurrence of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). There are people who do not have the symptoms of this post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but there are also people who may have the symptoms of this condition for the rest of their lives. And symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) include depression, panic attacks, suicidal thoughts, drug abuse, feelings of isolation, and a sense of inability to manage daily tasks.
Treatment in psychological trauma
There are many therapies that can be effective in treating psychological trauma. The best results are obtained by patients who work closely with a psychotherapist to implement various therapies focused on healing traumas. Most psychotherapists opt for combining therapy methods in order to obtain the best results. Today, there are alternatives to classical psychotherapy, namely Virtual Reality therapy designed to support the desensitization of patients suffering from psychological trauma.