Defining “Trauma”, Part 2: Not All Who Experience Trauma are Traumatized

One of my greatest lessons as a therapist came from a supervisor shortly after Russia’s first attacks on the Ukraine. This supervisor was living abroad and had offered his home up to a Ukrainian family. A mother and her three children stayed with him while their father remained in the Ukraine to fight. My supervisor spoke with admiration in his voice about the way this Ukrainian mother was handling these very challenging circumstances. He remarked that she spoke to her children about what was happening in a way that was direct and caring.

He said at one point, “these children are not traumatized”.

Not traumatized?! These children just fled their war torn country and are living abroad where they know no one and do not even speak the native tongue. Their father and so many loved ones remain back home to fight. How could this be true? What has happened to them is so clearly traumatizing.

My colleagues and I responded to him with some version of this, asking to hear more on his thinking. He responded by saying that this mother is providing enough of a sense of security, giving them context, and providing room for their feelings. She is not denying what is happening (they would be able to sense the turmoil on some level whether she acknowledged it or not) and she is finding ways to talk to them about it in ways they understand. This is allowing the children to work through what is happening as it is happening. He said that one particularly heartening sign is that the youngest child, only just school age, seems well-adjusted and playful. The play is an expression of their vitality and security- they feel safe enough to play. 

The important distinction that my supervisor was making is that we will all go through traumatic events in our lives, certainly some more traumatic than others. However, not everyone becomes traumatized. The support we have and the lens in which we experience the trauma through may be just as impactful as the trauma itself. He also was taking the opportunity to shine a light on how resilient human beings can be.

Historical and Present Day Support Makes a Difference During a Trauma 

I’m taking some liberties here but one could postulate that for these Ukrainian children, their mother was offering the right type of support at that moment, which is also likely indicative of the way they had been parented up to that point. If that’s the case, these children had been provided what is called a “secure base” during their formative years. A secure base is created when children are provided consistency, stability, and caregivers who are attuned to their basic needs (which includes material needs such as food and safety but also love). 

Children who experience a secure base internalize that feeling of safety as they go out into the world. It allows them to relate to the world as a safe place and aids them in creating new and additional secure relationships. They have that security within them during very challenging and disruptive moments moving forward. There are some traumas that are so extreme that it would rock someone even with the most stable and loving childhood. However, by and large, the more good we have had in our life, especially early on, the more resiliency it gives us to weather life’s inevitable challenges.

Unconsciously Recreating Trauma

In addition to impacting how we experience external traumas, our early experiences impact how we relate to others, who we close to and how do closeness. Our formative relationships form a blueprint for how we do love. As I write about on my Couples and Relationship Therapy page, humans move towards what is familiar and often recreate pieces of their earliest attachments in their adult relationships. Children who have abuse or instability in their earliest relationships may unconsciously seek out similar relationships as adults, even if they detest these similarities and actively want something different. 

Recreating unhealthy relationships can add trauma atop trauma, creating a compound effect. It is important to make space and honor all of it. We should not overattribute an adult’s suffering to their childhood and its important to appreciate that even hurt that takes place in non-formative years still has a big impact. However, if an adult patient of mine is stuck in a relational pattern that is not serving them, it is my responsibility to show curiosity about its roots and leadership in how we may identify them.

In my next piece, I will write more about my work with adult patients who have not related to themselves previously as having experienced complex trauma. Through our work, they have discovered some traumatic experiences that have been subtle and unconsciously impacting them negatively in present day.