Trauma in General
What Is Trauma?
For a glimpse into how EFT works to collapse trauma, see "A Painful Loss: Clearing the Emotional Anchor of a Physical Problem with EFT," "An Old Trigger: Fear from an Old Infidelity Trauma Leaks into a Present-Day Situation," and "Clearing Trauma in Children: Using Surrogate EFT to Clear the Trauma of a Dog Bite," located on the Articles page.
Trauma is an experience that is life-threatening or emotionally painful or involves intense fear, helplessness or horror. Trauma can be a shock for which you did not feel prepared. Trauma can have long-term mental, emotional and physical consequences.
During a traumatic event, your system can freeze, as if you are saying, "No, I can't deal with this." When this happens, the flow of energy in your energy system is blocked and the sensations and feelings of the trauma are encoded in a "trauma field" in your energy system. If the feelings and sensations of the trauma are not dealt with, they will resurface from the trauma field at some time in the future. Meanwhile, even if you are not actively presenting symptoms from the trauma, you are continually carrying the energy of the trauma field, and its energy is resonating out from you.
Symptoms of Trauma
Some symptoms that may result from experiencing a trauma are:
Recurring, intrusive memories of the event like a "tape in your head" that won't stop playing; flashbacks; nightmares; panic attacks; persistent frightening thoughts; depression; numbness; feeling of detachment from others; worry and anxiety; guilt; lapse of memory; avoidance of certain places and events; losing interest in activities that were previously enjoyable; not expecting to have a normal life or a normal life span; hypervigilance; being easily startled; feeling tense or "on edge;" irritability; angry outbursts; difficulty sleeping, eating or concentrating; trouble socializing; trouble going on with daily life.
It is natural to have certain symptoms of trauma after a dangerous or intense event. The symptoms may go away after a few weeks. However, if they do not, it is possible that post traumatic stress disorder is present. It is also possible for someone to have post traumatic stress disorder and not have any of the above symptoms for weeks or months.
Who Is Adversely Affected by Trauma
Not everyone who goes through a dangerous or intense event is affected in the same way. The National Institute of Mental Health states that most people who experience trauma will not develop post traumatic stress disorder.
Different factors help determine who develops long-term effects of trauma. There are both risk factors and resilience factors.
Because trauma seems to build on trauma, one of the risk factors is having lived through previous dangerous events and trauma in your history. So, if you experienced childhood trauma, you may be more adversely affected by a trauma experienced as an adult. If you have more than one extremely stressful event right after the trauma, or don't have a good support system, you also may be more adversely affected.
EFT and Trauma
From an energy perspective, healing from trauma involves collapsing the energy field of the trauma that has lodged in your energy system. The trauma field includes all the sensations of the trauma, the emotions generated during the event, your perception of what happened, how the event is "wired" in your brain and how that has altered the brain chemistry. It also involves your consciousness and your soul.
The most powerful antidote to trauma that I have experienced in my twenty years of practicing energy-based therapy is EFT, or Emotional Freedom Techniques. It has the ability to effectively and efficiently collapse the trauma energy field. When administered properly, EFT also prevents re-traumatization, meaning reactivating the trauma field in an attempt to collapse it.
EFT has the ability to take what wounded and traumatized you and remove the charge from it, so that what happened becomes a fact and a part of history, but no longer has the power to knock you off your feet.
For the latest research and studies on EFT and trauma, please consult the official EFT website: www.emofree.com. You can also watch a 20-minute video of EFT being used for trauma with war veterans at www.emofree.com/splash/video_vets.asp.
For a glimpse into how EFT works to collapse trauma, see "A Painful Loss: Clearing the Emotional Anchor of a Physical Problem with EFT," "An Old Trigger: Fear from an Old Infidelity Trauma Leaks into a Present-Day Situation," and "Clearing Trauma in Children: Using Surrogate EFT to Clear the Trauma of a Dog Bite," located on the Articles page.