Mental Health: Mental health are all of the elements that keep us connected and well. This includes the emotional, spiritual, physical, and relational parts of us. The four parts are the whole person.

Mental Illness: A mental illness is a diagnosable struggle which impacts one’s mental health. Mental illness can be caused through environmental factors, trauma, or genetics causing chemical imbalances in the brain. This can impact how one thinks, feels, and acts.

Trauma: Trauma can be a series of events or an individual event that impacts the mental, physical, relational and emotional well-being of a person.

What is trauma? When someone experiences a series of events that are emotionally disturbing or life threatening, that can impact mental, physical, relational, and/or emotional well-being.

Little t’s: A series of “small traumas” that can impact someone’s emotional well-being as well as cognitions (i.e. belief patterns) and bodily responses. Little t’s might be things like, dismissal as a child by caretakers over and over, bullying, etc.

Big T: A single large event that is emotionally, mentally, and physically disturbing (e.g. a natural disaster, rape). Complex Trauma: Multiple events of trauma throughout childhood and adolescence (e.g. sexual abuse by a family member for several years).

Trauma is a pervasive problem. It results from exposure to an incident or series of events that are emotionally disturbing or life-threatening with lasting adverse effects on the individual’s functioning and their emotional, spiritual, physical, and relational well-being.