What are trauma and emotional resilience?

Trauma is a set of events that threatens and damages an individual’s life, living integrity, and belief system. In other words, it is an event or circumstance that has adverse effects on the individual’s mental, physical, social and emotional functioning and well-being.

Individuals may experience traumatic events in three ways:

1- The event directly happens to them.

2- They witness the event and help the person it happens to.

3- They learn that the event happens to someone they love.

 Classification of traumatic events:

A-) Collective trauma: earthquake, wars, etc.

   Individual trauma: custody, violence, rape, incest, traffic accident, loss of job, etc.

 B-) Chronic traumas: ongoing war, incest, abuse, etc.

   Acute (sudden) traumas: Physical violence, accidents, etc.

 C-) Intentional trauma resulting from purposeful human action: rape, civil war, physical violence, etc.

   Natural disasters: earthquake, flood, etc.

   Technological accidents: Mining disasters, traffic accidents, etc.

While traumatic events are fairly common, they do not always occur as psychopathological symptoms. What are the factors that trigger the emergence of a disorder after an event?

Personal Traits: Age (children and the elderly are under a bigger risk); parents’ divorce; lower socio-economic level (not only are they more likely to experience, but also they cannot afford help); lower education level; social gender roles (LGBTI+ community); childhood traumas; a psychiatric disorder history in family; some personal traits (especially avoidant and anxious personalities); genetic factors; physical disorders experienced in trauma moment, being unprepared (being prepared brings about strength), non-functional coping methods

Trauma-Related Factors: The severity of the traumatic event (ex.: the number of casualties in an earthquake); frequency of the traumatic event (ex.: continuous harassment); being near a traumatic area (ex.: living nearby an earthquake’s epicenter, closely knowing a rapist); traumas resulting from an intentional action of a human; a specific response to trauma (pathological risk is higher if fear and terror reactions are clearly higher during an incident)

Environmental Factors: Insufficient access to medical, psychological, and social help services; deficiency of social resources/support; living in an underdeveloped/developing country; being an immigrant/refugee. If support from the families, relatives, friends or the society fail to work out in the post-traumatic process, a traumatized individual’s tendency to feel guilty and ashamed, and to be affected increases, while their resilience lowers.

All such factors result in a number of illnesses such as mental trauma, PTSD, acute stress disorder, major depression, panic attack, sexual dysfunction, sleep disorders.

What is Emotional Resilience?

An individual’s reaction to a traumatic experience is personal. Many people continue to experience positive emotions in the face of traumatic incidents, managing to cope well with traumatic events. A person’s psychological health might be much less affected especially when traumatic risk factors are lower, they have no previous traumatic experience, and have a strong support system or have developed a flexible personal structuring.

Emotional or psychological resilience is defined as a dynamic process where an individual adopts a positive physiological and behavioral determination, despite encountering stress factors and significant traumatic troubles. ‘Resilience’ is actually a term in Physics meaning the ability of a material to “spring back” to its original form after a pressure is applied or be elastic, and to maintain its original form. It was used in the field of psychology for the first time in the 20th century by trauma psychologists who defined it as “the ability to bounce back to feeling good from trying times and in the aftermath”. In other words, it can be addressed as the competent functioning of feelings and thoughts in the face of stress or troubles.

Emotional resilience is an instinctual survival skill, thus inherent in everyone. However, while some individuals have already discovered and developed this skill, while others have not unfolded much of it yet. Psychological resilience is an improvable variant at any age. It is a measurement for an individual’s capability of dealing with challenges and coping with stress to overcome those challenges.

• Traumatic events may disrupt children’s and young people’s functionality at home, work, school or social live, while causing them to experience some difficult in fulfilling their responsibilities in those areas. Therefore, early diagnosis of the implications of a traumatic process would translate into positive implications in the treatment process.
• Following traumatic events, people may develop misperception or misconceptions regarding their sense of self. Support provided to mitigate the PTSD effects is critical since this might negatively an individual’s subsequent actions. Resilience practices may help mitigate the impact of trauma.
• Studies on psychological resilience found out that people with higher psychological resilience can tackle poverty, violence, diseases, and other numerous stressful life events more successfully.
• Research further reinforces the fact that psychologically-resilient individuals have generally developed stronger social and problem-solving skills, are more optimistic, while being aware of their life purpose.
• Studies reveal that people who have experienced similar negative events can overcome problems more comfortably or tackle the distress caused by such events with minimal harm when their psychological resilience levels are improved.
• There are studies that indicate that increased exposure to negative childhood experiences may result in deterioration of health in adulthood with diseases including heat disease, cancer, chronic lung diseases.
• Childhood trauma may result in psychological issues such as depression, anxiety, behavioral disorders, PTSD, and ADHD.
• 83 reviewed studies indicate that there is a correlation between difficulty in cognitive functioning (e.g. reasoning, memory, concentration, and language), as well as academic functioning (e.g. marks and grades measured with standardized tests) in students, and exposure to trauma.
• On the other hand, research also argues that positive childhood experiences such as sense of belonging at school, participation in the community conventions, and supportive friends, can improve the influence of negative childhood experiences.
• Ways of developing resilience is suggested for prevention of negative childhood experiences. For example, access to sufficient care, social-emotional learning, counseling programs, and focusing on post-school programs can contribute to strengthening resilience.
• Trauma may change the structure of brain, but improved resilience helps the brain adapt and develop.
• Consequently, resilience- and trauma-informed schools and practices can help enhance psychological resilience of students.