ABSTRACT
Trauma survivors often hear well-meaning friends say to “just put the past behind them.” As one client said, “I tried to put it all behind me, but it kept following me home.”
Trauma alters the way our brains operate. For one-time traumas, that alteration may be relatively small. Complex trauma causes adaptations in the brain and body of the victim. The person needs to adapt in order to survive, and healing requires sufficient time to create new neuropathways that will allow the person to have the option of experiencing and behaving differently.
