Healing Trauma - Glossary Of Terms

Written By Esther

🧠 Trauma & Stress Responses

  • Acute stress response

  • Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)

  • Complex PTSD (C-PTSD)

  • Emotional flashbacks

  • Flashbacks

  • Hypervigilance

  • Hyperarousal

  • Hypoarousal

  • PTSD

  • Startle response

  • Trauma response

  • Triggers

  • Window of tolerance

🧩 Nervous System & Somatic Healing

  • Autonomic nervous system

  • Body-based interventions

  • Bottom-up processing

  • Containment

  • Felt sense

  • Grounding

  • Interoception

  • Mind–body connection

  • Nervous system regulation

  • Neuroplasticity

  • Polyvagal theory

  • Resourcing

  • Safety cues

  • Self-regulation

  • Somatic awareness

  • Somatic experiencing

  • Titration

  • Top-down / bottom-up approach

  • Vagus nerve

🧷 Attachment & Relational Trauma

  • Anxious attachment

  • Avoidant attachment

  • Attachment injuries

  • Attachment repair

  • Attachment styles

  • Attachment wounds

  • Co-regulation

  • Disorganized attachment

  • Emotional neglect

  • Emotional incest

  • Enmeshment

  • Father Wound

  • Insecure attachment

  • Mother Wound

  • Object relations

  • Parentification

  • Relational safety

  • Rupture and repair

  • Secure attachment

  • Secure base

  • Trauma bonding

  • Trust building

🪞 Parts Work, Identity & Self-Concept

  • Exiles

  • Fragmentation

  • Identity repair

  • Inner child

  • Inner child healing

  • Integration

  • Internal Family Systems (IFS)

  • Parts work

  • Protector parts

  • Self-energy

  • Self-leadership

  • Shadow work

🧠 Cognitive & Insight-Based Approaches

  • Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

  • Cognitive distortions

  • Cognitive processing

  • Core beliefs

  • Drama Triangle (Karpman’s)

  • Family constellations system

  • Meaning-making

  • Mentalization

  • Narrative therapy

  • Negative self-talk

  • Psychoeducation

  • Reframing

💬 Emotional Awareness & Regulation

  • Affect labeling

  • Alexithymia

  • Emotional awareness

  • Emotional dysregulation

  • Emotional literacy

  • Emotional regulation

  • Self-compassion

  • Self-soothing

  • Validation

🧱 Coping, Protection & Survival Patterns

  • Boundaries

  • Codependency

  • Defense mechanisms

  • Dissociation

  • Derealization

  • Depersonalization

  • Identification with aggressor

  • Intellectualization

  • Introjection

  • Fawn response

  • Fight response

  • Flight response

  • Freeze response

  • Generational trauma

  • Learned helplessness

  • People-pleasing

  • Projection

  • Repetition compulsion

  • Spiritual bypassing

🌱 Grief, Shame & Loss

  • Complex grief

  • Disenfranchised grief

  • Grief processing

  • Guilt vs. shame

  • Loss integration

  • Toxic shame

  • Shame resilience

🩺 Therapy Modalities & Skills

  • Bilateral stimulation

  • Breathwork

  • Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)

  • Distress tolerance

  • EMDR

  • Exposure therapy

  • Mindfulness

  • Stabilization skills

  • Safety and stabilization

  • "Tre shaking," or TRE (Tension & Trauma Releasing Exercises)

🧠 Neurodivergence

  • ADHD

  • Autism

  • Dyslexia

  • Executive management

  • Giftedness

🌟 Growth, Recovery & Empowerment

  • Agency

  • Empowerment

  • Healing integration

  • Post-traumatic growth

  • Resilience

  • Self-efficacy

  • Safe spaces

🔥 Burnout, Caregiver & Secondary Trauma

  • Burnout

  • Compassion fatigue

  • Secondary trauma

  • Vicarious trauma

🧠 Addiction

  • Detox

  • Dopamine

  • Relapse

  • Trigger

  • Withdrawal

🪞 Narcissistic Abuse, Emotional Manipulation

  • Antisocial personality disorder

  • Blame shifting

  • Brain fog

  • Breadcrumbing

  • Cluster-B personality

  • Coercive control

  • Cognitive dissonance

  • DARVO

  • Flying monkeys/enablers

  • Gangstalking

  • Gaslighting

  • Grey rock method / yellow rock method

  • Intermittent reinforcement

  • JADE

  • Weaponized incompetence

  • Mirroring

  • Moral injury

  • No contact

  • Plausible deniability

  • Projection

  • Reactive abuse

  • Scapegoating

  • Selective amnesia

  • Silent treatment

  • Smear campaign

  • Stonewalling

  • Trauma bond

  • Triangulation

  • Weaponized incompetence

Esther