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What do we understand by trauma?

Mar Álvarez
Mar Álvarez Segura
TEVI (domestic violence witness) Psychiatrist at the Youth and Infant Mental Health Centre in Cornella
Hospital Sant Joan de Déu Barcelona

Trauma is understood as the psychological response to traumatic events. These responses are categorized in different ways, one of which is post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

PTSD is just one of the possible responses to trauma. Equally important are anxiety, depression and unresolved grief, somatic symptoms, interpersonal relationship problems and their feedback loop of symptoms, excessive use of medical services, and so on. PTSD is an interesting concept that offers significant advances in many areas, although in this sense, it is conceptually limiting. PTSD is not an illness, but a normal response to a situation/event that is abnormal for human beings: the traumatic experience.

Alicia Álvarez García
Dr. Alicia Álvarez García
Clinical and Research Director of the Trauma, Crisis and Conflict Unit of Barcelona (UTCCB)
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

It is the wound left behind after experiencing a situation that completely overwhelms our coping abilities. Our brain, our nervous system, and our entire body react and activate coping strategies to deal with the threatening, dangerous, or harmful situation. If these strategies are not switched off once the threat has passed, they become dysfunctional and develop into the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.

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Mar Álvarez
Mar Álvarez Segura
TEVI (domestic violence witness) Psychiatrist at the Youth and Infant Mental Health Centre in Cornella
Hospital Sant Joan de Déu Barcelona
Alicia Álvarez García
Dr. Alicia Álvarez García
Clinical and Research Director of the Trauma, Crisis and Conflict Unit of Barcelona (UTCCB)
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona