What is trauma?

A serious injury or shock to the body, as from violence or an accident.

thefreedictionary.com

Experiencing, witnessing, or being confronted with an event or

events that involved actual or threatened death or serious

injury, or a threat to the physical integrity of self or others’

AND then responding with intense fear,

helplessness, or horror

DSM-IV-TR, American Psychiatric Association, 2001

Historical trauma is the “cumulative emotional and psychological wounding, over the lifespan and across generations, emanating from massive group trauma experiences (i.e. Residential School

or the Holocaust)

Historical trauma response is a “constellation of features” perceived as related, or as a reaction, to the historical trauma.

Yellow Horse Brave Heart, 2003

Quoted in Rethinking Historical Trauma: Narratives of Resilience,

Aaron R. Denham, 2008

Trauma is in the nervous system, not the event.

Trauma happens when the organism is strained beyond its adaptational capacity to regulate…. The (traumatized) nervous system disorganizes, breaks down

and cannot reset itself.

Peter Levine, founder of Somatic Experiencing Trauma Therapy