"GEORGE BONANNO: The big question, really, when I think about trauma is how do most people respond to the things that we think of as traumas? I tend to use the word potential trauma or potentially traumatic event. And that's because events are not traumatic, they're potentially traumatic, but how do most people respond? We know that some people get PTSD, but what do most people, how do most people react?"
"It's difficult for me to identify one myth that I'd like to debunk 'cause I'd like to debunk a bunch of them. There are at least three very much interrelated misconceptions about trauma right now. One is that anything very difficult and unpleasant, hard, can cause trauma or is a trauma. Another is that anything that we consider a trauma has lasting emotional damage."
Events are potentially traumatic rather than inherently traumatic; individual responses vary and many people do not develop lasting pathology. Research documents resilience as a common outcome after severe adversity, while a minority develops PTSD. Three interrelated misconceptions persist: that any very difficult experience is a trauma, that all traumas produce lasting emotional harm, and that hidden traumas silently continue to damage people. Scientific scrutiny finds little evidence for persistent, hidden trauma mechanisms in the body. Essentializing trauma exaggerates universal, long-term harm and obscures the variability of human response to adversity.
Read at Big Think
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