Trauma, which modifies the brain to function less well, can be caused by single or multiple events, first-person or third-person experiences, and can lead to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

“trauma is anything that modifies the brain to function less well going forward you know physical trauma you can have emotional trauma typically PTSD is used to refer to emotional trauma caused by either single events so you can imagine you know car accident sexual assault these could be first person experiences so things that happen to somebody that leads to trauma and then PTSD these can also be third person events where someone observes something that is traumatic to them maybe somebody being killed dismembered any number of different things that could be very traumatic in the immediate and long term and of course PTSD need not be caused only by single event traumas but by multiple event traumas entire relationships entire childhoods wartime experiences combinations of different traumas and on and on”