Trauma is typically seen as a specific event that causes irreparable harm to the victim, like a car wreck or assault. While this certainly can be true, trauma can be experienced over time as well, through emotional, physical, or sexual abuse often with similar, if not more pervasive, symptoms. Symptoms from these events can leave an individual paralyzed, unable to process what has occurred to them, leaving them unable to manage daily stressors and interpersonal relationships.
Common Symptoms of Trauma & PTSD
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is the most common diagnosis of trauma, and although it captures many of the symptoms of trauma, it can oftentimes miss some of the important aspects of trauma symptoms that have developed from childhood abuse. Generally, trauma symptoms include flashbacks or nightmares, hypervigilance or hyperarousal, intrusive thoughts, avoidance, as well as significant changes in behaviors or mood following a traumatic event.
If the traumatic event, or series of events, occurs over the course of childhood, these symptoms can appear to be slightly different than a typical PTSD diagnosis. Specifically, they can appear as learning and cognitive impairments, sensory processing issues, pervasive depressive symptoms, inability to form healthy attachments (including personality disorder, such as Borderline Personality Disorder), and significant conduct concerns. Generally categorized as Developmental Trauma Symptoms, these collections of behaviors may not all appear in an individual who has survived childhood trauma, but would show up with some level of impairment across the individual’s lifespan.
Diagnosing PTSD
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a widely known diagnosis and is used to cover a variety of different presentations and behaviors. In order to qualify for the diagnosis, there are a series of eight criteria areas that must be met. The first qualifies the traumatic event with the following four areas pertaining to specific symptoms elements. The final three cover general functioning and time frames for the diagnosis.
For any individual, the traumatic event must be experienced first-hand, witnessed, or experienced second-hand through a close relationship (i.e. family member for friend). In any of these experiences, adverse details must be known or experienced by the individual. This does include learning of details through TV or other media.
The second general area of the diagnosis can be split between intrusive, avoidant, cognitive, and arousal symptoms with each of these areas requiring at least one or more symptoms to be evident in the individual’s reactions. Intrusive elements include distressing memories, dreams, or reactions (i.e. flashbacks) with marked mental or physical distress that resemble parts of the traumatic event. This is linked to the avoidance symptoms, which indicates a significant effort to avoid either the thoughts, feelings, memories, people, places, or situations that would remind an individual of the traumatic event. For the cognitive symptoms, an individual may experience loss of memory of the event, exaggerated negative beliefs, blame, decrease in interest in activities, feeling detached, or inability to feel positive emotions. Finally, an individual may also experience irritability, recklessness, hypervigilance, a startle response, difficulty concentrating, and lack of sleep.
These symptoms must be present and consistent for at least a month to qualify as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and cannot be attributed to any influence of substance use. Over the course of the episode, the symptoms must cause significant impairment in functioning, specifically in one’s performance of daily tasks.
Treatment for Trauma & PTSD
The primary therapeutic techniques used to treat trauma and PTSD, focus on creating a level of safety for the individual, re-experiencing the traumatic experience and reactions, then integrating these memories back into their narrative. PTSD has well researched, positive therapeutic outcomes using techniques such as Prolonged Exposure (PE), Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT), and Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing (EMDR). All three of these techniques require a “re-living” of the experience, and reprocessing this information in slightly different modalities.
For Developmental Trauma, EMDR can be effective, however, research strongly supports the use of Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT) and other narrative approaches. These allow the individual to gain control over what has happened in the past, and re-integrate these thoughts back into their own story.
Resources Available for Trauma & PTSD
Here are additional resources for cutting-edge treatments and identifiers for Trauma & PTSD.
- Symptoms of PTSD (University of Pennsylvania)
- American Trauma Association
- Recognizing Child Traumatic Stress (SAHMSA)
- National Child Advocacy Center
If you’ve been suffering from PTSD or Trauma Symptoms in San Antonio, counseling or therapy services are available to help at Green Mountain Counseling. Contact us for San Antonio-based Trauma & PTSD Counseling.