Complex Trauma, or Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, is the multi-layered NEUROLOGICAL TRAUMATIC RESPONSE of our body to SHORT-TERM EXPOSURE to excessive stress caused by REPEATED SOCIAL AND INTERPERSONAL TRAUMATIC CHILDHOOD EXPERIENCES. These experiences result from events that shock a child to the point that their nervous system is overwhelmed, resulting in them being unable to respond to natural, developmental needs. This disruption is often severe enough to cause long-term changes in their brain structure. Adverse childhood experiences that can lead to complex trauma include: neglect, prenatal trauma, physical, sexual or emotional abuse.
Abusive experiences are frozen in time at the time the trauma was experienced and during later adult life they make the person shocked, helpless, isolated and immobilized on a physical, social, professional and interpersonal level.
Neuroscientific research shows that when we have experienced repetitive traumatic events, our brain undergoes detrimental changes in its structure, resulting in the following functions being compromised: Self-awareness, Executive Function, Emotional Regulation, Rational, Conceptual and Linguistic Processing.

Traumatic memories of the past are imprinted in primitive areas of the brain while the neocortex, the control tower of the brain, goes “out of order”. Then the instinctive parts of our brain are activated: The Limbic System which is the seat of emotions, together with the Brain Stem which regulates our vital functions. There are the ancient ways of dealing with danger, which are Flight, Freeze, Fight and Submission. When these areas remain constantly activated without the help of the evolved neocortex, our system loses its balance. When we are in this state, our awake inner world resembles a theater where the alarm system is constantly activated at every insignificant occasion, warning us of a danger that does not exist. Our body is driven into chronic overstimulation. As a result, people with complex trauma do not feel safe. At the core of their existence there is a deep lack of trust in the world. They see the environment as constantly threatening. This distorted sense affects the internal image and understanding of the self, as well as the meaning we give to external stimuli, without having the ability to separate our experience in the present from the past traumatic experience, since the sensations of traumatic memory are subconsciously repeated over and over again through the sensitized nervous system.

Trauma is not a painful story that we tell about something that happened in the past. It is the current imprint of this past pain, horror and fear that lives within people, experienced in the here and now as if it were then.

Consequently, the person is often overwhelmed by feelings of incomprehensible and overwhelming terror, anger, overwhelming shame and deep sadness. Feelings that are usually not communicated, because there is a fear of social stigma. A fact that renders the person alone and helpless, in endless, unmanageable pain.