Trauma Doesn’t Always Traumatize |
Take our Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Test
Find a therapist to heal from trauma.
The experience of trauma has always been a common feature of human life.
Most people who go through a traumatic event do not experience long-term suffering.
To help people who have experienced trauma, the event must be considered from their perspective.
As a clinical psychologist, I’ve seen lots of people who have experienced trauma. Sometimes the trauma happened a long time ago, and sometimes it was much more recent. But I quickly learned that not everyone who goes through trauma gets traumatized.
I guess that’s why Joel Paris’s (2023) book, Myths of Trauma, made so much sense. Paris points out that trauma has always been a part of human life. He reminds us that most people who experience trauma don’t suffer long-term effects (Paris, 2023).
And the figures are amazing. One study found that 70.4% of people across 24 countries recalled at least one lifetime trauma (Kessler, 2017). An earlier study reported a figure of 89.6% (Breslau et al., 1998).
So, trauma is very common. And recovering from trauma is really common too.
The problem is that society has become saturated with trauma (Rowland, 2025). This “trauma creep” risks trivializing the dreadful things that some people go through. And even worse, Paris (2023)........