WHAT IS TRAUMA? 

What is Trauma? 

Most people associate trauma with events like war, violence, extremes of physical, emotional, or sexual abuse, crippling accidents, or natural disasters. And those are surely traumatic. Many "ordinary" events can also be traumatic.

Some categories of trauma might include (this is by no means an exhaustive list):
  • Medical hospitalizations, burns, surgeries​
  • Accidents, falls, head injuries
  • Suffocation, drowning, strangulation
  • Attacks such as rape, war, mugging, stabbing,  gunshot wound, animal attacks
  • Horror such as seeing an accident, watching someone else being abused, killing or hurting someone
  • Neglect, abandonment, loss, generational trauma, and ongoing abuse

​A definition offered by Karen Saakvitne is: “Psychological trauma is the unique individual experience of an event [or a series of events] or of enduring conditions in which:
  • the individual’s ability to integrate his or her emotional experience is overwhelmed (i.e., his or her ability to stay present, understand what is happening, tolerate the feelings, or comprehend the horror), or
  • the individual experiences (subjectively) a threat to life, bodily integrity, or sanity.”  (Saakvitne et al, 2000)

​So trauma is an event or series of events that are so overwhelming and threatening to life or sanity that a person cannot cope. The mind may switch off (dissociate) during the event or, at the very least, it will not be able to hold together the different elements of the event afterwards and ‘integrate’ them or join them together. For instance, feelings may be separated off from thoughts, or the cognitive understanding of what is happening may be cut off from the sensory experience. It is this lack of ‘integration’ which characterizes trauma. Consequently, the traumatized individual may not be able to think coherently about what happened, or express or connect their feelings about the experience. The traumatic events can be stored ‘separately’ in the mind from normal, everyday experience and in some cases this will result in actual amnesia.
 
When the mind is overwhelmed by trauma, it finds it hard to store the event(s) as past memory. For a traumatized individual, the event continues to be experienced as ‘present’, as ‘still happening’, because the brain has not been able to integrate the whole experience and mark it with a kind of ‘context stamp’ that says ‘this is over’. It is therefore not surprising that the traumatized person continues to act and feel as if the trauma is still happening, and be over-reactive and hypervigilant. In order to cope with this, the traumatized individual may then try to shut off from the ‘now’ experience of trauma by numbing and avoidance. This then represents the triad of symptoms of PTSD: persistent re-experiencing of the event, avoidance of reminders and numbing of responsiveness, and hyperarousal. PTSD makes perfect sense in the light of the trauma being interpreted as still ‘now’.

What symptoms appear after trauma? 

The type of symptoms that occur after a traumatic experience can include:

  • Anxiety
  • Panic attacks
  • Hyperarousal
  • Constriction
  • Phantom pain
  • Disassociation or denial
  • Feeling helpless
  • Easily and frequently stressed out
  • Difficulty sleeping
  • Phobias
  • Dizziness or vertigo
  • Troubled breathing
  • Headaches
  • Pain
  • Fatigue
  • Hypervigilance
  • Abrupt mood swings
  • Sensitivity to light or sound
  • Nightmares or night terrors
  • Fibromyalgia
  • Emotional flooding
  • Hyperactivity
  • Gastrointestinal problems
  • Bladder Interstitial Cystitis
  • Pelvic pain
  • Self regulation problems
  • Feeling disconnected to life

If you experience any of these symptoms, even years after a traumatic event, do connect with Fr. Greg or a Somatic Experiencing Professional who can help you on your journey.

What does healing feel like? 

Common benefits of resolving trauma through Somatic Experiencing can be:​
  • Reduction/alleviation of chronic pain and tension
  • Becoming more present and engaged in life
  • Increased resiliency to future stressors
  • Restored sense of optimism and hope
  • Developed sense of clarity and purpose
  • Increased ability to focus and concentrate
  • Greater sense of peace, ease, and calm

HOW CAN SOMATIC EXPERIENCING HELP?

What is Somatic Experiencing?

Somatic Experiencing® (SE) is a research-based, innovative, body-centered approach to emotional healing and trauma resolution.  It was developed by Peter Levine, Ph.D and author of the best-seller, Walking the Tiger: Healing Trauma and In an Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness. 

Somatic Experiencing® provides the steps needed to reconnect individual with the innate wisdom of their bodies. Those who experience Somatic Experiencing® and do this work resolve their traumatic symptoms and reengage life with optimism, creativity, passion, and joy.

Learn more about Somatic Experiencing® through these resources. Or watching one of the short videos below.

I've done therapy and it didn't work.  How is SE different?

SE is NOT talk therapy. SE engages focused awareness of bodily sensations to engage innate self-regulation and healing. 

SE® helps individuals develop body awareness to
renegotiate and heal trauma rather than relive or re-enact trauma. 

SE® naturally builds greater and greater inner resiliency, self-regulation, and wellness. 

SE® is experienced as your own journey of
healing, rather than someone else "healing" you.

Our hope for you or your loved one:
Common Benefits of Somatic Experiencing® and resolution of Trauma

  • Reduced or alleviated chronic physical pain and recurring tension
  • Becoming more present and engaged in life
  • Increased resiliency for future stressors
  • Restored sense of optimism and hope
  • Increased confidence and sense of personal empowerment
  • Developed better sense of clarity and purpose
  • Greater sense of peace and calm
​Check out Peter Levine's In an Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness
“We believe that trauma is not in the event itself; it lies in the resiliency of the nervous system.  In others words, how quickly does the person who experienced the overwhelm bounce back, if at all? 

This means that after the event is over, if the children or adults affected are still registering danger signals in their body, they may easily get stuck in a vicious cycle of fight, flight or freeze, become alternately hyper-vigilant, or dissociated and aloof. 

Either of these states may cascade into a myriad of symptoms including sleeplessness, aggression, social problems, academic problems, and eventually, if unresolved, PTSD.”

-  Maggie Kline, MS, LMFT, SE® Practitioner
Trigger Warning. This video tells the compassionate story of the healing process of Ray, a marine who had been injured by two explosive devices (IEDs) and diagnosed with both severe PTSD and Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). He was brought to see Peter A. Levine after developing chronic pain, Tourette-like convulsions, cognitive problems and insomnia due to night terrors. In a series of documented Somatic Experiencing® (SE™) sessions, including Ray's family, Peter demonstrates the power of SE as a tool to heal the wounds of war. 

Recovery and Resilience

The Science of a Happy Mind, Part 1 | Nat Geo Live
 
Renowned neuroscientist Richard Davidson is finding that happiness is something we can cultivate and a skill that can be learned.  Working with the Dalai Lama, Davidson is investigating the far-reaching impact of mindfulness, meditation, and the cultivation of kindness on human health and well-being. In part one, Davidson talks about his research findings and the four main areas of scientific research that support his work: neuroplasticity, epigenetics, mind/body communication, and innate basic goodness.
The Science of a Happy Mind, Part 2 | Nat Geo Live

​Renowned neuroscientist Richard Davidson is finding that happiness is something we can cultivate and a skill that can be learned.  Working with the Dalai Lama, Davidson is investigating the far-reaching impact of mindfulness, meditation, and the cultivation of kindness on human health and well-being. In part two, Davidson talks about his research findings and the four fundamental components that, he has found, contribute to well-being: resilience, positive outlook, attention, and generosity.