Stress and traumatic stress and strong influencers of human personality and behavior.
Psychologist Erik Erikson discussed the stages of psychosocial development that each person goes through. At each stage, specific needs must be met. If those needs aren’t met, a person gets psychologically ‘stuck’ or arrested in that stage. According to Erikson, unresolved developmental tasks leave a life-long residue of emotional immaturity. As a result, many people’s …
Criticism is a massive deal for humans. We have a strong desire for approval and acceptance from others- to belong to our tribe. For most of our evolutionary history, living in close-knit tribes increased the odds of survival. The more valuable you are to your tribe, the more acceptance, status, and approval you get. The …
Survival is a top priority for the brain. You feel physiological and psychological stress when you encounter a survival-threatening or traumatic situation. When you’ve dealt with the threat, the stress fades, and you return to psychological and psychological balance. However, when a stressful event is high-impact or low-impact but continuous, it’s hard for the mind …
“What a terrible thing to have lost one’s mind. Or not to have a mind at all.” – Dan Quayle We’ve all experienced times when we felt like we were losing our minds. This is a crazy psychological phenomenon that makes you think that you’re going crazy. Of course, it’s unlikely that you’re actually going …
As a social species, humans expect other humans to support them, especially in difficult times. When two people go through the same traumatic experience, as difficult as times can get, they typically have no one but each to support them. When we’re supported and reciprocally support during a hardship, our distress gets reduced1Olff, M. (2012). …
In healthy romantic relationships, there’s a balance of closeness and distance. Each partner retains their own identity while also identifying with the relationship to some degree. This interdependence helps partners meet some of their needs themselves, and some are met by their partners. When there’s too much closeness in the relationship, the dynamic becomes unhealthy. …
When faced with a life-threatening situation, an organism generates the following trauma responses: In certain traumatic situations, fight and flight are not the appropriate responses. Neither is freeze. These are the situations where the organism will display a fawn response. The fawn response to trauma is when someone behaves submissively towards an aggressor, communicating: “I’m …
A trauma bond is an emotional bond that gets formed between an abuser and their victim. An abusive relationship will rarely be 100% abusive. Usually, there’s a mix of abuse and positive bonding in an overall abusive relationship. This keeps the victim stuck in the trauma bond, hoping to get the next fix of positive …
Trauma usually occurs in response to a seriously threatening event. Trauma is likely to happen when stress is intense or chronic, and a person cannot cope with that stress. Humans, like other animals, have three main responses to threats or stressful events: When we fight or take flight in response to a stressor, the event …
A trauma bond is formed in abusive relationships. An abusive relationship is one where there’s a major power imbalance between the partners. The abusive partner exercises power control over the other partner- the victim of abuse. In a healthy relationship, the two partners have more or less equal power distribution. A trauma bond is formed …