What Is Psychotrauma

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Each person is pleased to know that he is different from others, for example, has a more subtle mental organization. In the 18th century, high society ladies, emphasizing their sophistication, fainted, and now such a phenomenon as "psychotrauma" is gaining more and more popularity. What does this term mean and how often do they hide simple laziness and a desire to manipulate the disposition of others for their own mercantile purposes?

How to find differences

First of all, let's define the terminology. The acronym “psycho” can cover both mental and psychological trauma, and these are two huge differences that should not be confused in any case.

Mental trauma - a serious mental disorder, affecting the work of the brain. Memory lapses, inadequate reactions, lack of logic in actions and thoughts, confused speech are possible. A favorite technique of many writers and screenwriters is amnesia, when a hero gets several scratches as a result of a terrible accident, but loses his memory, stops recognizing family and friends, this is a typical mental trauma. It requires the help of professional doctors and medical treatment, since a person with mental trauma loses the adequacy of perception, including a sense of self-preservation, and in some cases can pose a danger to others, as well as to himself.

It is worth noting that people rarely admit to the presence of mental trauma - its real owners simply do not understand the complexity of the situation, and to simulate such a syndrome actually means to sign their own madness, and who cares? Psychological trauma is quite another matter. There is no end to the sufferers.

Psychologists define the term " psychological trauma »As atypical, inappropriate human behavior, which does not suffer from mental disorders. A hypothetical reason for such behavior can be a significant event for an individual that has a pronounced negative connotation. And the key word here is "Significant", because the same situation can be perceived by different people in completely different ways, and what is capable of shaking to the depths of one person's soul, will leave another indifferent.

However, glossy magazines and pseudo-psychological sites have so massively replicated psychological trauma syndromes that it has become fashionable. In the mass consciousness, psychotrauma is any possible harm caused by the actions of people around them or unfavorable life circumstances that can disrupt a person's psychological comfort.

So does psychological trauma exist in nature, or is it a media fiction? Let's try to figure it out.

Truth and fiction about trauma

The term "psychotrauma" was actively exploited in the 80s of the twentieth century, together with the so-called "crisis psychology" that was gaining rapid popularity. At the same time, no clear criteria for determining psychotrauma have been developed, each case is individual, but there are several signs by which one can determine whether there really is a psychological trauma, or is it just a moment of bad mood:

An event that is considered traumatic for the psyche

Today, absolutely everyone is included in this sign: the parents did not buy an expensive smartphone "like everyone else's" - the child was teased by classmates, he received a trauma and now he is not sure of himself. The teacher for the noise in the lesson, without understanding, gave two marks to the whole class, including those who were silent - so why teach lessons if life is still unfair. The head has deprived of the bonus for the unfulfilled plan - I will work "carelessly", because I am not appreciated anyway, and so on. That is, in fact, any incident that has a negative connotation is considered a trauma. However, an important point is forgotten - the event should be significant for a person. But here, too, not everything is clear.

Everyone values their life. For example, escaping from an apartment in the event of a fire is an extraordinary, dangerous, and therefore significant event, and can become a psychological trauma. But at the same time, firefighters regularly expose their lives to danger during the elimination of the consequences of emergencies, and do not experience psychological trauma, deliberately choosing such a job.

Involvement in the situation

Another mandatory sign of trauma. How often do we hear advice: there is a problem - distance yourself from it, look from the outside, and you will find a solution. But with psychological trauma, a person completely associates himself with a negative event, thinking about it, he certainly thinks about himself and vice versa. At the same time, do not forget that this symptom itself occurs quite often - for sure, there are those among your friends who “take to heart” many events, seemingly trivial. Yes, such people are more worried, “wasting their nerves,” but by no means they are in a state of psychotrauma, this is just a feature of temperament.

Vivid, haunting memories

The sign is the continuation of involvement in the situation. A mentally healthy person cannot keep in memory all the memories, no matter how vivid they may be. Two or three days, and the colors fade, emotions are smoothed out, the event seems to move to an archive file marked "good" or "bad". But with psychological trauma, any, even insignificant reminder, as if plunges a person into a stressful situation anew, makes him live again and again after days, months and even years. At the same time, he and other events in life begins to perceive negatively, as if through the prism of a shock experienced.

On the other hand, there are people who deliberately cultivate negative memories, literally savoring them, especially if there is a listener. This happens for a number of reasons, as a rule, due to the prevailing worldview, social circle, or simply from the absence of other interesting and important, significant activities, vivid emotions. As one village grandmother said when her granddaughter, who had come for the holidays, read her an essay based on the novel by L. Tolstoy “Anna Karenina”: “Anna needs your cow. Better yet, two! If a person can be distracted from self-examination in experiences with a new occupation, this is not a psychotrauma.

Self-destructive tendency

Another sign of psychotrauma, or rather, its consequence, is violation of the normal order of personality development, the natural work of the soul, a tendency to self-destruction. The psychological blow is so strong that it is impossible to cope on its own, the person loses his life guidelines, and constant experiences push him to the quickest relief from mental pain. But the active development of the personality, in fact, is not a frequent phenomenon. A much larger number of people prefer to live passively, to wait for the "master to come and make everyone sit down," and in the meantime to relax with the help of alcohol and other means capable of delivering pleasant sensations.

Be that as it may, even individually, signs of trauma are unpleasant phenomena, but an experienced psychologist will help you deal with them, often in just a few sessions. With a genuine psychological trauma, it will take longer, of course, but if a person sincerely wants to solve his problem, the main thing is not to delay, to seek help as soon as possible. It is not for nothing that when man-made disasters occur, psychologists must work in the staff of rescuers to help the victims cope with psychotraumas.

So one can do conclusionthat psychological trauma is by no means as common as it is written about in the pages of glossy magazines. And if you understand it properly, you can understand who really needs help, and who clings to the opportunity, under the guise of psychotrauma, to justify laziness and unwillingness to take responsibility for their own actions.