Vaughan Bell: let’s not make a trauma out of a crisis

The official definition of ‘trauma’ keeps changing. So what does that slippery word really mean?

A recent article in the American magazine the Atlantic reported that “Half of all kids are traumatised”, basing the headline on a study of childhood experiences from the US. If you’re shocked by this figure, it’s actually a fairly low estimate as far as the research goes, with many large studies citing figures that show over 70% of people have experienced a traumatic event in childhood.

That rises to 80% or more for adults, and when you reflect on these figures for a moment – suggesting that four out of five adults have been traumatised – it raises the little-asked but important question – what is trauma?

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