what is trauma

Trauma is an emotional and psychological response to an experience or event that is disturbing or distressing. Traumatic experiences are dangerous, disturbing, shocking, and scary. These events can be natural like an earthquake or hurricane, but they can also be caused by car accidents, other people, robbery, assault, attacks, or other crimes.

Trauma and stressor-related disorders are a collection of emotional and behavioral issues that could have been produced by childhood trauma and stressful events.

These stressful and traumatic events can include exposure to emotional or physical pain or violence. Stressors like parental separation or divorce or even more drastic stressors like physical or emotional neglect can create issues when heightened and not addressed by a PTSD and trauma treatment specialist. Even siblings’ birth or moving homes can be a stressor that causes significant challenges for some children.