In fact, some clinicians have moved away from considering trauma-related symptoms as indicators of a mental disorder and instead view them as part of the normal human survival instinct or as “adaptive mental processes involved in the assimilation and integration of new information with intense survival emphasis which exposure to the trauma has provided” ( Turnbull, 1998, p. The definition of psychological trauma is not limited to diagnostic criteria, however. According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition (DSM-5), trauma is defined as when an individual person is exposed “to actual or threatened death, serious injury, or sexual violence” ( American Psychiatric Association, 2013, p. Although many individuals report a single specific traumatic event, others, especially those seeking mental health or substance abuse services, have been exposed to multiple or chronic traumatic events. “Trauma results from an event, series of events, or set of circumstances that is experienced by an individual as physically or emotionally harmful or threatening and that has lasting adverse effects on the individual’s functioning and physical, social, emotional, or spiritual well-being” ( Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Trauma and Justice Strategic Initiative, 2012, p.
In this text, “trauma” refers to experiences that cause intense physical and psychological stress reactions.