Understanding and Unpacking ‘Little-t Trauma’
“Trauma” is a word that often gets thrown around pretty casually, but how do we actually define it? And moreover, what impact can it have on who we are, how we live, and how we function?
According to the American Psychological Association, trauma is the emotional response that people have to a distressing event, particularly one that threatens their life or safety (think natural disasters, car accidents, assaults). Traumatic experiences can cause significant distress, nightmares, flashbacks, and other psychological or physiological symptoms. For those suffering from trauma, it can be difficult to cope with day-to-day life. But these types of “big-T” traumatic experiences, like assault or abuse, are not the only kinds of experiences that can be classified as traumatic. In order to recognize all the different types of experiences that can cause difficult feelings after the fact, it’s important to expand the definition of trauma to include the more insidious “little-t” trauma.
Little-t trauma is less obvious than big-T trauma, which is sometimes the precursor to a diagnosis of PTSD. Events that lead to little-t trauma are still painful to someone who experiences them—think early life experiences, such as unmet needs, emotionally distant parents and not being seen, heard and valued as a unique individual. Even though there isn’t the same physical threat to a person’s safety, little-t trauma events can still be just as psychologically damaging as big-T ones. Little-t trauma events are often at the root of anxiety, depression, eating disorders, and relationship issues, and yet they are more likely to get brushed over—by the person experiencing them, family and friends, or even health care providers. The feelings around them accumulate and can linger, sometimes popping up at random or inopportune moments. For example, imagine that you are trying to reach your spouse to tell them something really important but they’re not available just then. You might get a burst of anxiety, anger, or sadness. Or maybe you tell yourself, “they don’t really care about me,” even though you know, deep down, that they’ve always been there for you. These types of feelings, which often don’t match the reality of the situation, may come from past experiences, like not having your parents’ attention when you needed it. That’s little-t trauma at work.
Effective trauma therapy needs to address little-t trauma
The reason that many therapy clients struggle with little-t trauma isn’t because they don’t believe what happened to them was painful. More often, they feel the events that led to the trauma weren’t “serious enough” to cause the difficult feelings they feel down the road. Those who can establish and recognize the link between past events and current emotions gain the ability to truly heal and have healthier relationships and responses to life events.
Therapists at The Talk Suite Psychotherapy help clients connect the dots so they can break old, destructive thought and behavior patterns and make real change in their life. To learn more about how to gain a better understanding of why you feel the way you do, contact us to book an appointment today.