What we get wrong about trauma

Most of us picture trauma as a catastrophic event that leaves a clear before and after. But trauma isn't defined by the magnitude of what happened — it's defined by how the nervous system encodes it. And once embedded, it often gets mistaken for personality.In this video essay:• Why trauma is way more complex and pervasive than we think.• Why trauma isn't clinically defined by the magnitude of the event.• How not all trauma is dramatic, and much of it lives deep in our minds and bodies.• Why the most insidious thing about unrecognized trauma is that it disguises itself as personality.• How trauma lives in the body, not just in memory.• Where to start when a reaction might be about an unresolved past.References:• The Body Keeps the Score (2014), Bessel van der Kolk• Felitti et al. (1998), the ACE Study, American Journal of Preventive Medicine• Trauma and Recovery (1992), Judith Herman• Micro-trauma: A Psychoanalytic Understanding of Cumulative Psychic Injury (2015), Margaret Crastnopol• Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving (2013), Pete Walker• Critchley & Garfinkel (2017), "Interoception and emotion," Current Opinion in PsychologyRead my original article: https://jmnaranjo.substack.com/p/what-we-get-wrong-about-traumaImperfectly: short essays on psychology, creativity, and the quieter questions of being human. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jmnaranjo.substack.com