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Episode 11: Fall Practice Mistakes
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Episode 06: Trauma and Climbing
Authors – Allegra Maguire & Kevin Roet
Big T and small T
What is trauma?
Trauma is defined by the American Psychological Association as “any disturbing experience that results in significant fear, helplessness, dissociation, confusion, or other disruptive feelings intense enough to have a long-lasting negative effect on a person’s attitude, behaviour, and other aspects of functioning. Traumatic events include those caused by human behaviour (e.g., rape, war, industrial accidents) as well as by nature (e.g., earthquakes) and often challenge an individual’s view of the world as a just, safe, and predictable place.”
While these feelings are normal, they can have long-lasting adverse effects on the individual’s functioning and physical, social and emotional well-being.
Trauma comes in different forms; acute, chronic and complex.
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Acute – trauma from a single event
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Chronic – trauma from repeated exposure
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Complex – trauma from varied and multiple events
How does trauma relate to climbing?
When we have had a bad fall in climbing, this can have a traumatic effect on our brain. This is especially the case if the climber hits their head against the rock without using a helmet.
But what is sometimes forgotten is the gradual and continuous exposure to small “traumatic” events over a prolonged period of time. For example, by pushing yourself in climbing into the panic zone regularly. Although the effects are not as generalized as with a proper trauma, these will have a psychological effect on your behaviour and affect your climbing performance. The more this process is repeated, the more it is set in your mind as a habit, reconfirming stress given a certain situation.
When it’s unrelated to climbing
Even trauma unrelated to climbing can affect our ability to cope with stress. It’s not just trauma within climbing that may affect your mind in dealing with fear. It can also be from an experience/scenario unrelated to climbing. This trauma can cause people to be more sensitive to ‘switching into threat mode’ – also referred to as hyperarousal – an increased sensitivity to a thought or action that can induce higher levels of anxiety. Trauma can affect your mind’s processing and how it deals with certain scenarios.
Studies have shown that early childhood trauma can affect the size of the amygdala, the hippocampus, the hypothalamus, amongst a few (parts of the brain which deal with fear and are linked to the nervous system[AM1] ). It can also influence the connectivity between all of these parts, hence reduce the capacity to cope with subsequent stressful events. I mention this because some people are more sensitive to situations where higher cortisol (stress hormone) and adrenaline levels are produced.
Although trauma is the most studied, highly stressful events can have a significant impact on everyday life and activities. A recent theory differentiated different highly distressing events as Big Trauma and Small Trauma to account for different effects.
What are Big T and Small T?
Big -T trauma – is a reaction to a deeply disturbing, life-threatening event or situation. For example, war, car accidents, death of a parent and even a bad fall in climbing resulting in injury. These are types of traumas that can lead to PTSD. For trauma to be considered PTSD, the symptoms must last more than a month and be severe enough to interfere with daily functioning. Acute Big T results from a single traumatic incident, like a bad fall in which you lose consciousness.
Small -T trauma – trauma doesn’t have to be life-threatening. Any event or ongoing situation that causes distress, fear, and a sense of helplessness may qualify as little-T trauma. For example, regular exposure to high levels of stress when doing fall practice in climbing. Some of the symptoms can be similar to Big-T trauma, although they are usually less severe.
Whether you have experienced Big-T or Small-T, these can have a debilitating effect on your climbing performance at times. Sometimes even the thought of a stress inducing situation can create our cortisol levels to rise, and cause our sympathetic nervous system to kick in (fight-flight response).
What can we do about it?
In order to create change, we need to work at a level of arousal that we can personally deal with, repeating this process over time, however small these first steps may be. Any change is considered progress, whether this is becoming aware of a behavioural pattern, delaying an old script, or putting in the smallest of changes. Here we need patience, positive affirmation, and support and encouragement from close friends.
We can help, and if you would like to find out more, please contact us.
In certain situations, a professional therapist may need to help. We work closely with a few professional psychotherapists if you require further help.
References:
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