Psychological trauma - what it is, its types, signs and consequences. How to get rid of psychological trauma

Psychological trauma is severe emotional distress and damage to mental health caused by sudden and severe stressful events. By analogy with the definition of physical trauma as bodily injury, as a result of which the physiological functions of organs and tissues are disrupted, we can talk about what psychological trauma is. This is a defeat of the mental-emotional sphere, leading to a disruption in the normal functioning of the psyche. The method of treating psychological trauma depends on its type and symptoms.

What is psychotrauma

This is a certain life experience for which a person is not ready. The means of solving problems known to him are not enough or they are simply not suitable in this situation (“life did not prepare me for this”). As a result, there is a sharp and strong nervous excitement and energy exhaustion.

Psychotrauma is a deep individual reaction to an event that is significant for a person, causing strong mental stress and negative emotions in the future, which a person cannot overcome on his own. As a result, lasting changes occur in the psyche, personality, behavior and physiology.

Trauma can form as a result of a one-time influence of a specific stimulus or through a cumulative system as a result of regular, but seemingly traumatic events.

Reasons to see a doctor

Recovery may take some time. The amount of time is individual and depends only on the personal characteristics of the patient. There are cases in which you cannot cope without the help of a specialist. These include:

• Unpleasant sensations do not go away for several months, negative emotions do not subside over time.
• Emotional depression affects work and family relationships.
• There is a fear of intimacy, which causes relationships with others to collapse.
• Physical symptoms are observed.
• An avoidance reaction is observed: the patient consciously or unconsciously avoids activities and situations that are reminiscent of the events of trauma.
• The patient uses alcohol, smoking or drugs to get rid of oppressive emotions.

During the treatment process, the specialist suggests confronting the trauma events again and finally working through them. Treatment takes some time. Unfortunately, you cannot get rid of unpleasant sensations by “willpower” alone. Only time and work with a specialist will help. Therapy takes place in several stages:

• Processing traumatic memories, feelings, emotions.
• Working through physical symptoms, learning to control the physical reaction to stress.
• Emotional control training.
• In some cases, it is necessary to include psychopharmacotherapy. In this case, mild, “gentle” drugs are prescribed that do not have a negative effect on everyday functioning and do not reduce performance, to which “addiction” does not form and does not develop “dependence syndrome”. Our specialists will discuss in detail with the patient all possible undesirable effects that may arise and will take into account the individual characteristics and preferences of the patient.

The key to successful therapy is time and completion of the full course of recommended treatment. The CELT clinic employs the best psychotherapists who will help you overcome any psychological problems. Attention and concern for each patient became the key to recovery for hundreds of happy visitors to the clinic.

Make an appointment through the application or by calling +7 +7 We work every day:

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What situation becomes a psychotrauma?

The stressful situation then becomes traumatic, that is, it acquires the status of psychological (mental) trauma when the psychological defense mechanism of the individual is destroyed as a result of overload (physical, mental and adaptive). The following features are characteristic of the injury:

• the person understands that it was this event that worsened his psychological state;
• influenced by external factors;
• the usual way of life after this event in a person’s understanding becomes impossible;
• the event causes horror in a person, a feeling of helplessness and powerlessness to change something, even to try.

For a normally developing person, such a situation is, of course, something that goes beyond the generally accepted norms of life, for example, a situation of a threat to life, violence, a disaster, a terrorist attack, or combat. But the very phrase “threat to life and safety” hints at a certain degree of subjectivity of the issue. Therefore, it is impossible to say unequivocally what exactly and for whom will become a psychotraumatic situation.

For example, in psychology, it is customary to include the death of a loved one due to natural causes, conflicts (including family ones), dismissal, and illness as transferable human experiences. Criminal acts and the strong influence of natural elements are considered intolerable. But in everyday life, death is always a traumatic event, and not everyone can adequately endure the illness (depending on what kind of illness it is).

Childhood psychotraumas in adults: reasons for their formation

Psychologists identify the following potential sources of childhood psychological trauma:

• the departure of one of the parents from the family, divorce. Often in such situations, adults manipulate each other; the child for them is a tool of control and revenge. The child involuntarily faces a difficult choice: taking the side of one of the parents, he is separated from the other;
• unsafe living environment. The danger is not necessarily physical, tangible. Psychotrauma in a child can develop as a result of constant conflicts in the family and school, moral pressure, pressing, latent conflicts, an oppressive heavy atmosphere;
• serious illness or death of family members or close friends. The death of loved ones can provoke in a child uncertainty about the safety and constancy of the outside world;
• deficit of parental attention. For every child, it is important to feel unconditional love and personal need from people close to him. While it is difficult for him to understand the words with which adults express their love, the main indicators of their affection for the baby are in the care, attention and actions of the parents. Children deprived of proper attention grow up alienated and rejected, they feel worthless and useless to anyone;
• directives: personal attitudes that the child’s parents were unable to cope with themselves and overcome their negative influence, they use to lay the script for the entire subsequent life of their child. Any parental directive embedded in a child’s psyche can cause negative consequences in adulthood: the formation of numerous complexes, self-doubt, low self-esteem, and inability to communicate with other people.

Signs of psychotrauma

Emotional symptoms include:

• mood swings;
• irritation;
• alienation;
• feelings of guilt and shame;
• decreased self-esteem and self-confidence;
• confusion;
• anxiety and fear;
• isolation;
• feeling of uselessness.

Physical signs include:

• sleep disturbance, fearfulness;
• changes in breathing and heartbeat;
• any functional disorders in the systems (for example, bowel disorders);
• muscle tension;
• fussiness;
• deterioration of cognitive abilities;
• fatigue.

Factors of psychotrauma

The likelihood of injury is influenced by internal and external factors. External ones include:

• physical trauma;
• loss of relatives and (or) housing;
• overwork, lack of sleep;
• tension, disruption of the daily routine and usual way of life;
• deterioration of material well-being;
• moving;
• job loss;
• conflicts;
• change in social status;
• lack of support.

Among the internal factors, the following plays a role:

• age (old people and children are especially vulnerable);
• gender (in adulthood women are more vulnerable, in childhood – boys);
• individual characteristics (excitability, emotionality, instability, impulsiveness contribute to the development of trauma);
• personal characteristics (anxious people with pronounced depressive and hysterical traits, sensitivity, infantilism, immobility of defense mechanisms and coping strategies are more susceptible to traumatization), the level of motivation, value orientations and attitudes, moral and volitional qualities also influence;
• Emergency Preparedness, Similar Experiences;
• initial neuropsychic and somatic state.

Development of psychotrauma

Psychotrauma does not occur immediately. She goes through certain stages.

Psychological shock

Typically a short stage. It is characterized by human disadaptation (lack of understanding of what is happening) and denial (attempts by the psyche to defend itself).

Impact

Longer stage. This is a manifestation of various emotions that are little controlled by the person himself: fear, horror, anger, crying, accusation, anxiety. At the same stage, self-accusation, scrolling through options (“what would happen if ..."), and self-flagellation occur. A good example: the agony of survivors in the event of an accident.

Recovery or PTSD

But then two options are possible: recovery as the third stage (accepting the fact of what happened, adapting to new conditions, working through and living through emotions) or the development of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as a variant of dwelling on the trauma. The first option, of course, is normal from a psychological standpoint.

How to deal with this problem?

How to survive psychological trauma? You should be patient and be prepared for failures, especially if your psyche has been seriously damaged. The best option is to seek professional help. An experienced psychiatrist or psychologist will find out the causes of the injury, help you perceive it adequately and eliminate the consequences. If there is no opportunity to contact a specialist, then you can try to act on your own, although you may still need outside help.

So, how to survive psychological trauma?

1. Do not withdraw into yourself under any circumstances; on the contrary, try to actively participate in public life and accept help from loved ones and acquaintances, it can be useful.
2. Try to find an interesting activity that will captivate you and bring only pleasant emotions. A good mood and the pleasure received during classes will help restore the damaged psyche and forget about the events experienced.
3. Don't hold back your emotions, they need a way out. So if you feel like crying, screaming and showing anger, then do it. To throw out all the negative things, you can buy and hit a punching bag, sign up for a wrestling match or go to the gym.
4. Experienced psychologists actively use exercises, and in this case the most effective will be to recall in memory the events that provoked the injury. It would seem that, on the contrary, this could cause even greater suffering, but in fact, sometimes an inadequate mental reaction is associated precisely with the blocking of consciousness or certain feelings that arose in a difficult situation. So try to remember everything that happened in detail. Start at the beginning and work your way up to the specific event that is causing you pain. This may be difficult at first, and if you cannot cope with emotions, then act gradually, moving one or more steps forward each time. When you can reproduce what happened completely and in detail, focus on your own sensations, especially those that make you feel discomfort. Thus, having experienced everything again, you will unblock your consciousness and be able to perceive everything adequately and, finally, accept it.
5. You can also talk about what happened or describe it on paper.
6. Try changing your environment, especially if it reminds you of unpleasant events that have left a mark on your memory. So, you can move to a new apartment or even change cities. In a new place, everything will be different, and the victim may perceive himself as a completely different person, and the past in this case will be forgotten.
7. Try not to lose touch with reality, stay aware of what is happening around you, otherwise you will simply fall out of life, and it will not be easy to return to it.
8. Sometimes you just need to talk it out, and not necessarily to a loved one, you can talk to a stranger or write a message on a thematic forum.
9. Draw a clear line between the past and the present, understand that you have already experienced the events that caused you pain.
10. Try doing something creative or sports.

The tips given above will help you cope with the consequences of psychological trauma and forget everything that happened.

Types of psychotrauma

Psychotraumas come in two types: a short-term unexpected traumatic event and a constantly recurring influence of an external factor.

Short term impact

This type of injury is characterized by:

• a single influence that threatens the life and safety of a person or people significant to him, requiring the individual to react beyond his capabilities;
• a rare, isolated experience;
• unexpected event;
• the event leaves a mark on the psyche, the emotions associated with the event are brighter and stronger than with the second type;
• the event leads to intrusive thoughts about the trauma, avoidance, and physical reactivity;
• rapid recovery is rare.

Permanent influence

The second type of psychotrauma is characterized by:

• multiple, variable and predictable influences;
• the situation is deliberate;
• during the first incident, the experience is similar to the first type, but already during the second and subsequent repetitions the nature of the experience of the situation changes;
• feeling helpless and unable to prevent re-injury;
• memories in this case are not so vivid, unclear and heterogeneous;
• against the background of this type, the self-concept of the individual changes: self-esteem decreases, a feeling of shame and guilt arises;
• personal changes occur, as a result of which a person behaves separately;
• defense mechanisms such as dissociation (memories of the event happening to someone else), denial, attempts to drown out reality (drunkenness) are observed.

Thus, the first type of trauma includes an accident, disaster, terrorist attack, robbery. The second is the drunkenness of the husband (father, mother) with subsequent variable rows (if he gets drunk, it means something bad will happen, but it’s not entirely clear what exactly).

Types of psychological trauma

There are several types of psychological trauma. The first classification divides injuries into shock, acute and chronic.

Shock trauma is characterized by short-term duration. It always appears spontaneously, as a result of threatening events in the life of an individual and his loved ones.

Acute psychological trauma has a short-term effect on the psyche. Its appearance is associated with previous events, such as humiliation, breakup of relationships.

Psychological, chronic trauma is caused by a negative lingering impact on the psyche, does not have a pronounced form and can last for decades. For example, this is a childhood in a dysfunctional family or a marriage that causes psychological discomfort or physical harm.

The second classification identifies the following psychotraumas:

- trauma of loss;

— existential;

— traumas of one’s own mistakes.

- relationship trauma.

Existential trauma is a belief in a mortal threat or that something threatens a person and his loved ones. A characteristic symptom is fear of death. The individual in this situation is faced with a choice - to withdraw into himself or become stronger.

The trauma of loss refers to the fear of loneliness.

Relationship trauma appears, for example, after the betrayal of a loved one, and in this case, difficulties arise in the future with trust in people.

The trauma of a mistake is shame for what you have done or a feeling of guilt.

Consequences of psychotrauma

As a result of unprocessed psychological trauma, PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), acute mental disorders, psychosomatic illnesses, and addictive behavior can develop.

Psychogenic non-psychotic disorders

Reactions: asthenic, depressive, hysterical syndrome, decreased motivation and purposefulness of actions, inadequate assessment of reality, situational-affective reactions.

Conditions: asthenic, hysterical, depressive neurosis, exhaustion neurosis, obsessive states. Loss of the ability to critically evaluate and set goals, anxiety-phobic disorders.

Reactive psychotic disorders

Irreversible disturbances occur in any area: consciousness, thinking, motor-volitional, emotional sphere.

Acute disorders: affective-shock reactions, excessive excitation or inhibition, clouded consciousness.

Prolonged disorders: depressive psychosis, paranoid, hysterical, pseudodementia (imitation of dementia), hallucinations.

How to get rid of psychotrauma

Treatment must be carried out by a clinical psychologist or psychotherapist. You need to understand the normality of your condition, reconsider the traumatic situation (rethink), learn to calmly experience the situation, rebuild your interaction with yourself and the world in a new way, regain faith in yourself, and build new goals.

The correction plan is always selected individually. In the treatment of psychotrauma the following is used:

• Gestalt therapy;
• cognitive behavioral psychotherapy;
• provocative therapy;
• NLP (neurolinguistic programming);
• psychosuggestive therapy.

For addictions or other serious disorders, medical assistance is prescribed.