Trauma

The "Big T" and "small T" distinction is a popular shorthand from the trauma-therapy literature. It captures something real about single-incident versus accumulated experiences, but it has become a hierarchy of legitimacy that the research does not support.

Developmental trauma is the impact of repeated or prolonged interpersonal stressors during childhood, occurring in the context of the relationships that were meant to be regulating. It is not the same clinical territory as event-based posttraumatic stress disorder.

Brainspotting is a trauma-focused psychotherapeutic modality developed by the American psychologist David Grand in 2003. It works with the visual field, body-based attention, and the therapeutic relationship. The proposed mechanisms remain at the level of hypothesis, and the empirical evidence base is small and emerging.

Trauma bonding is a specific relational dynamic that emerges from two structural conditions: a power imbalance and intermittent reinforcement, meaning abuse alternating with affection or repair. The academic literature describes it as documented and recognisable, not as a fuzzy or metaphorical attachment.

When telling the story makes things worse for a while, it is not a sign that you are doing therapy wrong or that the trauma is too much. It is a nervous system event with a documented mechanism.

Minority stress is the additional psychological load carried by people in structurally stigmatised groups. It is chronic, socially based, and external in origin. It overlaps with individual trauma in symptom territory but is distinct in source: the load is produced by ongoing social conditions, not by discrete events.

Yes. The formal DSM-5 criterion for posttraumatic stress disorder requires exposure to actual or threatened death, serious injury, or sexual violence. The clinical reality is that experiences that do not meet this threshold can still produce trauma-related distress and impairment.

Memory after trauma is often stored unevenly. The body holds patterns of sensation, posture, and physiological response that the conscious mind cannot retrieve as a coherent narrative. This is how the system organised the experience under the conditions it was in, not a sign of malfunction.

Unprocessed trauma is not a condition you can give yourself from a checklist. It is a clinical pattern that requires assessment. There are signs worth taking seriously, and a cleaner question to ask than "do I have unprocessed trauma."

Freezing and shutting down are not signs of weakness or avoidance. They are nervous system protective responses that the body has learned to use when the conditions for processing are not in place.