Fall semester topics
- Week 36. Benefits of volunteer work
- Week 37. Living with learning disabilities
- Week 38. Personality disorders
- Week 39. Setting up healthy boundaries
- Week 40. Learning to improve concentration
- Week 41. Suicide prevention – learning to help
- Week 42. Phobias – dealing with fears
- Week 43. Sleep disorders
- Week 44. Sexuality – the biochemistry
- Week 45. Addictive relationships
- Week 46. UNESCO day of tolerance
- Week 47. Improving self-confidence
- Week 48. Helping friends or others in distress
- Week 49. World AIDS day – living with illness
- Week 50. Value based decision making
- Week 51. Being assertive in a diverse world
- Week 52. Spirituality – spiritual growth
- Week 1. Dynamics of intro- & extraverts
- Week 2. Orientation – a career that fits!
- Week 3. Living in a foreign country
- Week 4. Overcoming test anxiety
- Week 5. Understanding dysfunction in a family
- Week 6. Smoking – giving up methods
- Week 7. Valentine’s day – commitment
- Week 8. Communication – focusing on skills
- Week 9. Domestic violence
- Week 10. Work-life balance – expectations
- Week 11. Loneliness and feeling alone
- Week 12. Understanding of joy and happiness
- Week 13. Racial discrimination
- Week 14. PTSD
- Week 15. World health day
- Week 16. Panic disorders
- Week 17. Academic honesty – authenticity
- Week 18. Death and dying
- Week 19. Job interviews – good impression
- Week 20. Characteristic of sound families
- Week 21. Celebrating cultural diversity
- Week 22. Growing up in a single parent home
- Week 23. Act of love (self and others)
- Week 24. Focusing on personality tests
- Week 25. Childhood traumas
- Week 26. Relating to the elderly
- Week 27. Grief – dealing with loss
- Week 28. Drug and substance abuse
- Week 29. Dealing with depression
- Week 30. Procrastination
- Week 31. Recovering from shame and guilt
- Week 32. Perfectionism
- Week 33. First generation university students
- Week 34. Compulsive obsessive behaviors
- Week 35. Body image – eating disorders
- Week 36. School bullying – mobbing concerns
Spring semester topics
Childhood traumas/psychological trauma
What kinds of events can cause psychological trauma?
Traumatic events come in many forms and are generally distinguished from more commonplace misfortunes by the severity of the event and the intensity of a person’s reactions to it. Psychological trauma in general can result from a single, one-time traumatic event such as sexual assault, physical attacks, car accidents, natural disasters, crimes, deaths, and other violent events. It can also include responses to chronic or repetitive stressful experiences such as child sexual and physical abuse, battering relationships, bullying, neglect, urban violence etc. However, people sustaining such trauma in childhood may react differently to differently to similar events. One person may perceive an event to be traumatic that another may not and not all people who experience a traumatic event will become psychologically traumatized.
How do I know if my experience is considered traumatic?
Psychological trauma is the personal experience or witnessing of a highly stressful event in which:
1. The individual is overwhelmed and unable to cope with his/her emotional reaction to the event, or
2. The individual experiences an intense fear, helplessness, loss of control, or threat to life or bodily integrity.
Thus, psychological trauma is caused by experiencing a traumatic event that overwhelms a person’s ability to cope and leaves them fearing death, bodily injury, or psychological damage.
Much of the information above has been adapted from: Giller, Esther, What is psychological trauma? The Sidran Foundation; AND Carlson, Eve B. & Ruzek, Joseph. Effects of traumatic experiences. The National Center for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Recommended books
1. Herman, Judith L. (1992). Trauma and recovery. New York: Harper Collins.
2. Allen, Jon G. (1999). Coping with trauma: A guide to self-understanding. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Press.
3. Matsakis, Aphrodite (1996). I can’t get over it: A handbook for trauma survivors. New Harbinger Publishers.
4. Janoff-Bulman, Ronnie (1992). Shattered assumptions: Towards a new psychology of trauma. Free Press.
Additional web resources