Terror, Trauma and Healing

I love my wife dearly. She is very important to me; if there was some kind of threat to her, I would want to protect her from it. Yet there are times when it is I who is the source of disturbance. I am not talking about my annoying habits; this is more serious stuff. Its to do with what therapist Lynne Jacobs calls a traumatised state of mind (TSM). Trauma can be defined as a stressor which overwhelm someone s ability to cope, characterised by feelings of helplessness in the face of some kind of personal danger. This can be the result of natural events, or more often circumstances such as the abuse of power, betrayal of trust, entrapment, pain or loss. It is not overly dramatic to claim that most people have some kind of personal trauma in their background. This may be the result of childhood experiences of abuse (or witnessing abuse), neglect or degradation; it may be related to adult experiences of violence or humiliation. Psychological effects worsen with chronicity, unpredictability, multifaceted sources, of a sadistic nature, and perpetrated by someone one has a relationship with. Even single events can have a significant and lasting impact.