What is trauma?
According to the American Psychological Association, “Trauma is an emotional response to a terrible event like an accident, crime, or natural disaster.” Trauma is subjective -- what one person experiences as trauma is not necessarily trauma to another. People most often recognize events such as war, violent crime, and physical or sexual abuse as trauma. But trauma can be more than that, especially to a child. Trauma can also have less overt origins and manifest in different ways. People (such as mediators) must have some knowledge of trauma for effective communication.
Trauma’s roots and effects
Imagine growing up in a house where one or both parents are struggling with drug or alcohol addiction. Neither parent does any physical harm to the child, but what the child hears and sees every day is where the trauma occurs. For instance, trauma is occurring each time this child sees their parents passed out on the couch. The child is forced to take responsibility for getting dressed for school, making their own meals, and finding a way to feel cared for and necessary. All of this is traumatic for a child, and it affects every part of their life.
In adults who experienced trauma as children, the trauma is still there physically, emotionally, and psychologically in that person. How they deal with people and conflicts that can arise can, and most likely, will still be an issue.
How does trauma manifest?
There are four broad ways a person might respond to trauma. There is fight, where a person will react aggressively. There is flight, where a person will run away and hide. There is freeze, where a person will do things like wear headphones and a hood to shut out the world, they may put their head down on a table, or just stop reacting. The fourth way is fawn, where a person acts very obsequiously towards another person.
Trauma-informed mediation
Mediators should be aware that someone’s past trauma might be influencing their reactions during a present conflict. In mediation, mediators must use their listening skills to hear not only what is being said but how it is being said and what may be behind it. If, for example, a person is giving in to everything the other party says, this person may be experiencing effects from earlier trauma (that may or may not have involved the other party) that causes them to go into their coping mechanism of dealing with trauma. This could be an example of a person fawning - doing everything they can to avoid making the other person strike out at them. Trauma can affect mediation, and trauma-informed mediators can help improve outcomes for parties during mediation.
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