What is
Psychological Trauma?
Webster’s
dictionary definition
trauma as: a) a disordered psychic or behavioral state
resulting
from severe mental or emotional stress or physical injury, and b) an emotional upset, the personal trauma of an
executive who
is not living up to his own expectations.
Trauma
is an
automatic reaction learned from what the mind a) believes to be a life
threatening experience or b) reaction learned from a long term or
on-going bad
experience.
In
nature, humans
and animals learned to use trauma for survival, but people have also
learned to
traumatize each other. Today, trauma is no longer a needed
survival tool;
indeed, it’s even harmful. Fortunately, RLT removes trauma.
There are
two types of
trauma: “Big T” and “Little t.”
“Big
T” traumas are
individual traumatic events, such as rape, death of a loved one,
violence, an
accident in an airplane, train or car, and war experiences.
“Little
t” trauma is
long term or ongoing negative experiences such as constant criticism,
unrelenting teasing, or being ignored. Constant put-downs, such
as being
told over and over that “You are stupid” or “You will
never amount to anything”
are “Little t” events.
RLT works
with Big T and
Little t traumas. Both types leave the traumatized person feeling
out of
control. RLT allows people to maintain self-control, which then
enables
them to deal with a problem or challenge with logical and reasonable
responses. Before using RLT, people’s trauma often presses
them to over
respond. Actions like rage, fight, flight, freeze (going to
sleep, or in
extreme cases, catatonia), and illnesses of unknown origin become
common.