Trauma, from the Greek word for ‘wound’, is not what happens to you; it is what happens inside you as a result of what happens to you. - Gabor Maté, MD

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At One Elm we truly believe that with personalized and expert trauma informed care, and just the smallest window of willingness to change, a person can look back in time and comprehend that the wounds developed when one was vulnerable and helpless can be healed. That is the heart of the work that can happen at One Elm.

 

Gabor Maté, an authority in developmental trauma, defines and explains trauma as a wound that can be addressed and healed given the right kind of help. Most people think trauma is “a divorce when you were small and your parents [were] fighting. Trauma is your mother's depression. Trauma is your father's alcoholism…Those aren't the traumas. Those are traumatic. But the trauma is not what happens to you. The trauma is what happens inside you.”1

 

Developmental trauma occurs while one is in the process of becoming an adult. As Maté states, it is an unresolved “psychic wound that leaves a scar, it leaves an imprint in your nervous system, in your body, in your psyche and then shows up in multiple ways that are not helpful to you later on.” 2 It is a type of post-traumatic stress disorder. 3

 

Pia Mellody, a fellow at The Meadows addiction treatment center and expert on the childhood origins of emotional dysfunction, discusses childhood abuse as patterns and events of anything less than nurturing – the things that happened that shouldn’t have or the things that didn’t happen that should have – before the ages of seventeen or eighteen.

 

These “less than nurturing” experiences can lead to mental, emotional, physical and behavioral problems in adulthood including personality disorders, relationship issues, substance and other addictions. All are maladaptive ways to try to function and stay secure.

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When developmental trauma has occurred at a young age it is often denied. It is common for one to say and believe “There was no trauma in my family or environment, let alone abuse. I had a good childhood.”

 

At One Elm we have heard that statement. This is due to the fact that in the majority of childhood experiences plenty went right as well as wrong. In most cases parents and caregivers never intended to traumatize and wound children. They just unknowingly carried forward overt and covert forms of toxic shame and actions from their own lives.

 

A developmental trauma wound can be raw and painful or be scarred over and lacking feeling. 4 In order to “recover” and step into a healthy adulthood, unresolved traumatic events and patterns that have occurred in one’s life must be viewed and sufficiently processed no matter how long ago they took place. It is critical for recovery to clearly see how trauma in early life can have a hold on present-day functioning or lack thereof. In order to be free from its grasp and step into a lasting, meaningful, and mature freedom of mind, body and spirit an honest, supported accounting of past traumas is required.

 

In summary, trauma and its subsequent scarring can anesthetize and halt emotional growth. A person often continues to react in adulthood as they originally did as a child. As Maté has stated, if a scab has formed over an original wound, rigidity can develop because scar tissue lacks sensation. If a person is physically, emotionally and mentally wounded inside, that person is not capable of truly healthy adult activity, interaction or relationships. Only if help, in the form of sophisticated guidance and structure is sought, is healing from the wound possible.

 

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[1]  Maté, Gabor. Dr. Gabor Maté — New Paradigms, Ayahuasca, and Redefining Addiction”. The Tim Ferris Show. Podcast audio, February, 2018. 

[2] Maté, Gabor. “Dr. Gabor Maté ON: Understanding Your Trauma & How to Heal Emotional Wounds to Start Moving On From the Past Today.” On Purpose with Jay Shetty. Podcast audio, October, 2022.

[3]  Complex PTSD is characterized by severe and persistent 1) problems in affect regulation; 2) beliefs about oneself as diminished, defeated or worthless, accompanied by feelings of shame, guilt or failure related to the traumatic event; and 3) difficulties in sustaining relationships and in feeling close to others. These symptoms cause significant impairment in personal, family, social, educational, occupational or other important areas of functioning.

World Health Organization. (2019). Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. In International statistical classification of diseases and related health problems (11th ed.). https://icd.who.int/browse/2024-01/mms/en#585833559

[4]  Maté, Gabor. “Dr. Gabor Maté ON: Understanding Your Trauma & How to Heal Emotional Wounds to Start Moving On From the Past Today.” On Purpose with Jay Shetty. Podcast audio, October, 2022.