What is  Type A Trauma

​

We can say when someone does not receive the things they need it always produces weakness and damage. Type A trauma during childhood builds a weakened control center in the brain. Without proper stimulation the structures and capacities needed for a stable personality do not develop. The resulting weak mind is far more vulnerable to being traumatized by events that would not crush a normal or robust mind. This lack of capacity greatly reduces the focus, stability, productivity and capacity to learn for that individual. Instead, the person is susceptible to fearful or aggressive reactions instead of goal-directed responses. 

​

Type A trauma always produces damage.

​

Bad things that happen sometimes produce trauma and other times they do not. This has made it very hard to produce a list of bad things that will always lead to conditions like Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or dissociation.

​

​

What is Type B Trauma

​

Type B trauma results from specific traumatic events, such as physical, sexual, or verbal abuse; war; bullying, assault; a car accident; or a near-death experience—both when they are experienced or witnessed.

​

Thus Type B trauma is what happens any time your brain’s control center gets overloaded. We all have a limit to our capacity to endure overwhelming events and the emotions they produce. When the intensity of an emotion even becomes stronger than our capacity and there is no one to help us bear it the brain shuts off the higher cortical regions of the control center and goes first into terror and then to parasympathetic shut down as the back of the brain tries desperately to survive.

​

Bad things that happen to us do not always produce trauma, if a person has the strength to experience the pain they suffer but without being traumatized. What traumatizes a poorly grown brain is often handled by a well-developed control center in another person’s mind. The stronger mind will be able to quiet itself, stay in relationship and act like him or herself in the face of the pain levels. Suffering well is the alternative to being traumatized that comes as we grow our capacities.

 

What is the difference between Type A and Type B Trauma?

​

The difference between these two types of trauma is that Type B category events may not always result in trauma, depending on the strength of a person’s emotional and psychological development, particularly in early childhood. A person with a healthier environment in early childhood is much more likely to develop a capacity to handle negative events. Studies show that around two-thirds of addicted adults had some type of childhood trauma. Addiction is often an attempt to self-medicate. For that reason, a teen going through a teen rehab treatment center program will very likely be led through a process of identifying events or situations that caused trauma.

​

Complex PTSD or Developmental Trauma

​

Developmental trauma, or Complex PTSD, results from a series of repeated, often ‘invisible’ childhood experiences of maltreatment, abuse, neglect, and situations in which the child has little or no control or any perceived hope to escape. Growing up in an environment full of unpredictability, danger, parental inconsistencies or emotional abandonment, these individuals are left with ’hidden traumas’  that disrupts not only their psychological but also neurological and emotional development. 

 

Your trauma will not be resolved by reliving (reenacting physically and emotionally) the traumatic experience. By itself, abreacting only gives me another chance to go through the terrible experience. To be resolved the partner or person suffering form trauma must achieve a mutual state of mind with another person in the midst of the experience that will lead her to act like herself (maintaining a relationship), quieting together and then find meaning for her in the experience by discovering how God sees her at that moment.

​

 

"Being able to feel safe with other people

is probably the single most important aspect of mental health;

safe connections are fundamental to meaningful and satisfying lives."  

 

B. van der Kolk

​

If you want to heal from trauma in your life, and want to discover how your body can never lie but always knows the truth of what happened to you, contact me to help you.

​