Trauma refers to psychological wound, pain or special scar caused by an unmanageable state of random changes that in most cases are negative. I interviewed a close friend Corny who had experienced a divorce of parents, and shortly after, loss of a brother.
When all this happened, she was in her adolescent stage, at the age of 16 in 10th grade and this really affected her studies and social life. At this stage of life it was pretty hard to comprehend with all that was happening around her so she needed someone to talk to her and assist her to understand the situation and start leading a normal life again. Corny’s family being a middle class one, happy together for as long as she could remember, and she has never seen or heard her parents argue, and the next thing she is hearing is that she and one of her brother’s will from then on be staying with her mother and the older brother with the dad. This affected her studies and she almost dropped out, because the mum was a housewife and now she had to find a way of paying for the school fees of one of them, as the dad would pay for the upkeep of the brother (Maddison, 1977).
Few months later, Corny was faced with another hard truth to deal with, the death of their older brother who was staying with the dad, who died from a car accident. From this moment, she got even more confused and even scared that things were completely falling apart for her family. Instead of coping with the situation at hand, she began to imagine the nature of other bad things that would happen and to whom, maybe herself this time. She had been crying for days and nights but things only got worse for her, and slowly she was resolving into depression without her knowledge.
One of Corny’s aunts, Dourine with whom she had been very close from childhood, noted her situation because she started portraying some of the symptoms like temper tantrums, forgetfulness, and a great deal of intense rage. The first thing that aunt Dourine did was talking to her about the things that surrounded her, from the divorce, to the death, to her studies and now what she was going through as a result of all that. She suggested that Corny should seek assistance from a professional counselor, but she tried to insist that she was fine. Dourine tried her best to convince her that she finally had to involve a third party who was Corny’s mother and they both convinced her. Dourine catered for the cost of counseling services and made sure that Corny followed up with the counselor, until after a couple of weeks there was some improvement and she had started getting back to herself, the jovial and social Corny (Montgomery & Morris, 2000).
In understanding the aspects that result to, or are associated with a trauma, a lot of information is required so as to be able to come up with viable and effective solutions that reduce or totally eradicate the effects of the trauma. Developmental information is important in the understanding of the possible causes of the trauma or the reasons for the increase in effects of the trauma. This for example would explain why a trauma that could have easily been overcome persists and in fact affects the victim psychologically. On the other hand, ecological information is important as it may also explain the probable causes of the trauma as well providing a lead on the possibility of getting solutions for overcoming the trauma (Pargament, 2001).
References
Maddison, D. (1977). Coping with crisis: A challenge for the health professions. New York: AMC.
Montgomery, B., & Morris, L. (2000). Surviving: coping with a life crisis. London: Da Capo Press.
Pargament, K. (2001). The Psychology of Religion and Coping: Theory, Research, Practice. New York: Guilford Press.