The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration defines trauma as “an event, series of events, or set of circumstances that is experienced by an individual as physically or emotionally harmful or threatening and that has lasting adverse effects on the individual’s functioning and physical, social, emotional, or spiritual well-being.”
Notably, this definition of trauma includes singular events (e.g., an assault, a natural disaster), long-standing or repeated experiences (e.g., combat, domestic violence), and chronic or continuous traumatic stressors (e.g., racism and vulnerability to race-based violence) (see Carello). It also extends beyond individual psychiatric diagnoses (e.g., PTSD) to address the multiple and varied impact traumatic events have on those who experience them. Traumatic events and chronic traumatic stress cause significant long-term effects on the bodies and minds of those who experience them (see van der Kolk and Verschelden for a review of this evidence).
While traumatic events and chronic traumatic stressors can be experienced differently by different individuals, they share at their root a disruption in “the ordinary systems of care that give people a sense of control, connection, and meaning” in their world (Herman, 1992/2015, p. 33). As they work to address this sense of disruption, trauma-informed approaches also support students who are suffering from the isolation and uncertainty of the last three years of pandemic-shaped learning.
Van der Kolk, Bessel. (2014) The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma. Bessel Van der Kolk’s classic work, The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma, looks at physiological responses to stress and trauma, examining the long term health effects of stress on the body. This is a useful and thorough overview of the history of trauma as it has been perceived and researched by the scientific community. The author further explores different therapeutic techniques that have been known to help individuals recover from traumatic events and chronic stress.
Verschelden, Cia. (2017). Bandwidth recovery: helping students reclaim cognitive resources lost to poverty, racism, and social marginalization. Stylus. In Bandwidth Recovery: helping students reclaim cognitive resources lost to poverty, racism, and social marginalization, Cia Verschelden discusses how the experiences of poverty, racism, mental or physical health challenges, identity-based discrimination, and other traumas can reduce mental bandwidth, making students unable to give their full concentration to tasks such as education. Constantly living under chronic stress can damage the immune system, increase susceptibility to diseases, and adversely affect students’ health. Students from underrepresented groups can also experience what Verschelden calls “underminers,” including stereotype threats, disidentification with academics, microaggressions and a lack of belonging that also reduce their available bandwidth to be successful in college. See section on “Empowering Students” for the author's concrete strategies to empower students who are experiencing these forms of trauma.