Topic > Impact of Trauma - 1462

Trauma is often seen as an event; however, trauma is actually the impact on a client's life as a result of an experience (Saunders, 2016). There are many factors that determine the effect trauma will have on a person, including: developmental processes, meaning associated with the trauma, and sociocultural factors (SAMHSA, 2014). Traumatic experiences can cause a person to have an unintegrated state of sensations, feelings, thoughts, behaviors, and/or images that are so strong that they interfere with the person's normal functioning. This state causes the person to be unable to access memories, sensations, or somatic responses necessary to overcome events that are overwhelming and may be developmentally intrusive (Saunders, 2016). In post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), unintegrated feelings, sensations, and images may be activated and the brain reacts with the same feelings of overwhelm. These PTSD reactions are the result of unintegrated memories about an individual