A Counselor’s Trauma Definition: 10 Common Examples

If you’ve ever wanted to wake up from a nightmare only to realize it’s a reality, you might have experienced a form of trauma. Often trauma comes after a life-threatening experience, but it can also develop after an incident that is perceived as life-threatening. Trauma invades our individual sense of control after a deeply terrifying circumstance. How we perceive what has happened to us is where the trauma lies.

Trauma Comes in Many Shapes and Forms

Let’s take a moment to look at the 10 most common types of trauma in order to understand and to consider whether it could be what you are experiencing.

1. Sexual Assault, Abuse or Harassment

According to the United States Department of Justice, sexual assault is any type of sexual contact or behavior that occurs without the explicit consent of the recipient. Normally, sexual assault can fall into three categories:

• Acts of penetration either with objects or body parts.
• Forced physical contact with the genitalia, breast, buttocks, or other intimate body parts through groping, fondling or kissing.
• Exposure of genitalia, breast, buttocks or other intimate body parts. This includes being subjected to explicit materials like pornographic images, texting nude photos to minors or exploiting a child sexually. It can also be a neighbor exposing himself to children as they walk by his home.

2. Physical Assault or Abuse

Physical abuse or assault is intentionally inflicting pain or harm upon another person. An example might be a parent throwing his child against the wall after making a mistake or a teenager stabbing another teenager during a fight. If a person is deliberately hurt by someone else, this is physical abuse.

3. Emotional Abuse

Most people have a pretty clear and accurate idea of physical abuse, but emotional abuse is easier to miss. If your friend experienced physical abuse, bruises and scars might be left as reminders, but emotional abuse leaves invisible bruises like feelings of humiliation, shame, and depression.

Emotional abuse can be an aggressive shout or giving someone the silent treatment to intentionally isolate him. Emotional abuse is designed to make the victim feel like they are to blame and often leaves the victim feeling unworthy, unloveable and fearful.

4. Neglect

Experiencing trauma has serious implications for mental health. Neglect can begin during infancy when the parents don’t have the capacity or willingness to properly care for their child. Neglect, in a nutshell, is a failure to meet basic needs such as food, clothing, medical care, proper hygiene or shelter.

It’s often found in cases of children or the elderly. If a baby is crying and a parent refuses to feed and comfort her child, trauma begins to form. Not acting on a child’s need when the caregiver has the power to act is considered neglect.

5. Domestic Violence

Domestic violence is often hidden because it happens behind closed doors under the roof of a home. It looks like physical violence, sexual violence, or emotional abuse among adults in a relationship.

Verbal threats also fall into this category. Domestic violence victims often feel helpless or terrified to leave the abuser. Children who witness the circumstances absorb the negative activity and can internalize it, causing traumatic behaviors.

6. Serious Accidents or Illness

Car accidents, house fires, medical procedures or a major injury can be traumatic. If you faced and defeated cancer, you could exhibit lingering trauma behaviors. Children that experienced various medical procedures might harbor a fear of hospitals or doctors and lash out.

7. War-related Trauma

Most are aware of the term post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. This can occur when someone has returned from a war zone where they experienced threats to life and other terrifying experiences. Memories are lodged in their mind and often flashbacks occur.

Many countries around the world are submerged in war and millions of displaced people have become refugees. These people might not personally be involved in combat, but have experienced shooting, torture, bombings, and forced separation from their country of origin. Families don’t know when they will be able to return to their homes and begin settling in other unfamiliar areas.

8. Natural or Manmade Disasters

If you keep up with current events, you have seen many natural disasters in the news lately. There have been hurricanes battering many states and countries, wildfires devouring property and sending people fleeing, earthquakes leaving a path of destruction and mudslides claiming many lives. In these instances, properties are swept away and lives are lost.

9. School Violence

When the Columbine High School shooting happened, it shocked the nation. It was hard to imagine such an atrocity occurring in a place where innocent children and teens go every day to learn. Unfortunately, the school shootings have continued to increase. Even if you weren’t injured during a school shooting, the sights, smells, and emotions can still leave severe symptoms of trauma.

10. Bullying

Kids on the receiving end of bullying wake up each day anticipating the moment they will be teased and tormented. School bullying is the reason why some young children commit suicide. It has devastating effects on young children. Social media has introduced cyberbullying.

It’s running rampant as keyboards become weapons for cutting others down. The computer screen offers security from the scars that are left. But behind that screen is a real person traumatized by the onslaught of negativity.

However, bullying doesn’t just occur on the school playground. Many adults in the workplace admit to having experiencing adult bullying. It’s not always something children grow out of since it’s an aggressive negative behavior. If you were bullied as a child, chances are it has impacted your adult life too.

Recovering from Trauma

If you can relate to any of the forms of trauma discussed in this article, a Christian counselor is ready to walk the road of recovery with you. Healing is a process and should never be forced. There are several methods of therapy and exercises that help with various types of trauma. Trauma recovery is designed to improve your quality of life on a daily basis.