Trauma & design

Key terms

The terms listed below are intentionally framed in plain language, or words that are commonly used in conversation. A wide range of disciplines contribute to, document, study, or ameliorate trauma, including: behavioral health, clinical psychology, decolonial studies, education, gender studies, indigenous studies, law, neurophysiology, positive psychology, public health, social justice, and wellness. Each discipline has specialist terms to describe various aspects of trauma; these are listed in the ‘related terms’ section below each main term.

Trauma 101

What do we talk about when we talk about trauma? Some of the commonly used terms, and our collective understandings of them.

Trauma
A complex, disruptive, and painful phenomena that people experience individually and collectively from abuse, deprivation, neglect, violence, or other violation of their basic needs and human rights.
Triggered/trigger response
A person’s extreme, involuntary, rapid, physiological and mental response to an experience that the ‘reptilian’ part of their brain associates with an earlier trauma. Being triggered renders important parts of a person’s physiological and mental capacity temporarily non-functional.
Related terms: amygdala hijack, ptsd episode, dissociation
Trigger experience
Not all people who experience trauma, experience triggers. It results in greatly reduced capacity for the duration of the person’s response. This experience is frequently, but not always, terrifying for the person involved. It can be extremely difficult for people around the person who is triggered, too.
Related terms: fight or flight, freeze, fawn response, tend response, befriend response, panic attack, annihalation panic, rage, emotional numbness
Regulating
A person returns from a triggered state to a stasis state (whatever that looks like for each person ie stasis may be comparatively distant from, or close to, the triggered state). This takes at least 1 hour, and up to several days.
Related terms: heart rate variability, embodiment, vagus nerve
Trigger/triggering
An interaction or thing that, when experienced, results individual, in a person becoming triggered. Anything can be a trigger, and triggers are different for different people.
Related terms: hate speech, misrepresentation, aggression, violence
Trigger warning
A disclaimer given before raising an issue that may be likely to be set off this extreme response in other people who are present. Not every trigger can be given a warning.

What are the negative associations with trauma? Our understandings of the origins of trauma, and harms or negative effects associated with it.

Trauma
A complex, disruptive, and painful phenomena that people experience individually and collectively from abuse, deprivation, neglect, violence, or other violation of their basic needs and human rights.
Triggered/trigger response
A person’s extreme, involuntary, rapid, physiological and mental response to an experience that the ‘reptilian’ part of their brain associates with an earlier trauma. Being triggered renders important parts of a person’s physiological and mental capacity temporarily non-functional.
Related terms: amygdala hijack, ptsd episode, dissociation
Trigger experience
Not all people who experience trauma, experience triggers. It results in greatly reduced capacity for the duration of the person’s response. This experience is frequently, but not always, terrifying for the person involved. It can be extremely difficult for people around the person who is triggered, too.
Related terms: fight or flight, freeze, fawn response, tend response, befriend response, panic attack, annihalation panic, rage, emotional numbness
Regulating
A person returns from a triggered state to a stasis state (whatever that looks like for each person ie stasis may be comparatively distant from, or close to, the triggered state). This takes at least 1 hour, and up to several days.
Related terms: heart rate variability, embodiment, vagus nerve
Trigger/triggering
An interaction or thing that, when experienced, results individual, in a person becoming triggered. Anything can be a trigger, and triggers are different for different people.
Related terms: hate speech, misrepresentation, aggression, violence
Trigger warning
A disclaimer given before raising an issue that may be likely to be set off this extreme response in other people who are present. Not every trigger can be given a warning.
Trauma origins
Trauma has a lot of origins. Debilitating effects of trauma can be caused by a single event, primary, secondary, ancestral/intergenerational, systemic, environmental.
Related terms: triggers
Trauma effects (individual, in a person)
Compromised immune system, exaggerated startle response, feelings of foreshortened future, absence of felt sense of self.
Related terms: adverse childhood experiences score, anxiety, autoimmune diseases, depression, heart disease, post traumatic stress disorder, post traumatic slave syndrome
People doing pioneering related work: Peter Levine, Joy de Gruy, Gabor Mate, Carl Jung, Hans Seyle, Stephen Porges
Trauma effects (relational, people relating to one another)
Annihilation panic, absence of felt sense of connection, normalization of destructive relations.
Related terms: abuse, domestic violence, gaslighting, harrassment, hungry ghosts
People doing pioneering related work: Bessel van der Kolk, Gabor Mate
Trauma effects (cultural, within large groups of people)
Normalization of violence and disconnection, marginalized people face increased oppression, and widespread stress-related illnesses.
Related terms: captialism, cognitive injustice, colonialism, eugenics, genocide, slavery, xenophobia, white supremacy
People doing pioneering related work: Bessel van der Kolk, Gabor Mate, Joy de Gruy
Trauma and privilege
Less diagnoses and more severe symptoms are often experienced by people with less multigenerational and systemic privilege.
Related terms: mental health, diagnoses, criminalization
Trauma healing (individual, in a person)
A person with a grounded, regulated, and resilient neurophysiology will experience potentially traumatic events, and heal from those events, in very close proximity to one another (sometimes in miliseconds).
Related terms: post traumatic growth, fear extinction, positive psychology, neuroaffective regulation
People doing pioneering related work: Francine Shapiro, Laurence Heller, Peter Levine, Carl Jung, Emma Seppala
Trauma healing (relational, people relating to one another)
The capacity for people to relate to one another without debilitating, terrifying, or otherwise disruptive symptoms inhibiting interpersonal connection.
Related terms: advocacy, collaboration, harm reduction, neuroaffective relational model, care ethics
People doing pioneering related work: Sue Johnson, Bessel van der Kolk, Laurence Heller
Trauma healing (cultural, within large groups of people)
Cultural understandings of life, lead by previously marginalized and silenced people.
Related terms: ancestral wisdom, consensus building, decarceration, interconnectedness, intersectional feminism, posthumanism, reparations, social justice, sovereignty
People doing pioneering related work: Bessel van der Kolk
Trauma and social justice
Trauma can be seen and used as an intersectional term. Healing trauma is a form of intersectional liberation. Trauma healing and social justice work require one another.
Trauma and design
Design is both a contributor to trauma and a tool that can be used for healing from trauma.
Design as an origin of trauma
When an experience of design (as a user of a designed thing, service, or experience; or as a person working within a design industry) functions as a trauma trigger for one or more people.
Related terms: dark patterns, disinformation, misrepresentation
People doing pioneering related work: Sasha Costanza-Chock, Lauren Klein, Catherine D'Ignazio, Katherine Hepworth, Christopher Church
Design as a source of healing from trauma
When an experience of design facilitates healing from trauma for one or more people.
Related terms: autonomous design, biofeedback, calm technology, cognitive justice, design activism, design justice, empathic computing, humane technology, inclusion nudges, decolonizing design, ethical visualization, data feminism, society centered design, harm reducing communication, person-first language, plain language
People doing pioneering related work: Arturo Escobar, Katherine Hepworth, Sasha Costanza-Chock, Lauren Klein, Catherine D'Ignazio, Charles Kostelnick, Marion Dork, Christopher Church, If Collective, Digital Democracy

What are the positive associations with trauma? Our understandings of the healthy and healing associations with trauma, and benefits arising from it.

Trauma
A complex, disruptive, and painful phenomena that people experience individually and collectively from abuse, deprivation, neglect, violence, or other violation of their basic needs and human rights.
Triggered/trigger response
A person’s extreme, involuntary, rapid, physiological and mental response to an experience that the ‘reptilian’ part of their brain associates with an earlier trauma. Being triggered renders important parts of a person’s physiological and mental capacity temporarily non-functional.
Related terms: amygdala hijack, ptsd episode, dissociation
Trigger experience
Not all people who experience trauma, experience triggers. It results in greatly reduced capacity for the duration of the person’s response. This experience is frequently, but not always, terrifying for the person involved. It can be extremely difficult for people around the person who is triggered, too.
Related terms: fight or flight, freeze, fawn response, tend response, befriend response, panic attack, annihalation panic, rage, emotional numbness
Regulating
A person returns from a triggered state to a stasis state (whatever that looks like for each person ie stasis may be comparatively distant from, or close to, the triggered state). This takes at least 1 hour, and up to several days.
Related terms: heart rate variability, embodiment, vagus nerve
Trigger/triggering
An interaction or thing that, when experienced, results individual, in a person becoming triggered. Anything can be a trigger, and triggers are different for different people.
Related terms: hate speech, misrepresentation, aggression, violence
Trigger warning
A disclaimer given before raising an issue that may be likely to be set off this extreme response in other people who are present. Not every trigger can be given a warning.
Trauma origins
Trauma has a lot of origins. Debilitating effects of trauma can be caused by a single event, primary, secondary, ancestral/intergenerational, systemic, environmental.
Related terms: triggers
Trauma effects (individual, in a person)
Compromised immune system, exaggerated startle response, feelings of foreshortened future, absence of felt sense of self.
Related terms: adverse childhood experiences score, anxiety, autoimmune diseases, depression, heart disease, post traumatic stress disorder, post traumatic slave syndrome
People doing pioneering related work: Peter Levine, Joy de Gruy, Gabor Mate, Carl Jung, Hans Seyle, Stephen Porges
Trauma effects (relational, people relating to one another)
Annihilation panic, absence of felt sense of connection, normalization of destructive relations.
Related terms: abuse, domestic violence, gaslighting, harrassment, hungry ghosts
People doing pioneering related work: Bessel van der Kolk, Gabor Mate
Trauma effects (cultural, within large groups of people)
Normalization of violence and disconnection, marginalized people face increased oppression, and widespread stress-related illnesses.
Related terms: captialism, cognitive injustice, colonialism, eugenics, genocide, slavery, xenophobia, white supremacy
People doing pioneering related work: Bessel van der Kolk, Gabor Mate, Joy de Gruy
Trauma and privilege
Less diagnoses and more severe symptoms are often experienced by people with less multigenerational and systemic privilege.
Related terms: mental health, diagnoses, criminalization
Trauma healing (individual, in a person)
A person with a grounded, regulated, and resilient neurophysiology will experience potentially traumatic events, and heal from those events, in very close proximity to one another (sometimes in miliseconds).
Related terms: post traumatic growth, fear extinction, positive psychology, neuroaffective regulation
People doing pioneering related work: Francine Shapiro, Laurence Heller, Peter Levine, Carl Jung, Emma Seppala
Trauma healing (relational, people relating to one another)
The capacity for people to relate to one another without debilitating, terrifying, or otherwise disruptive symptoms inhibiting interpersonal connection.
Related terms: advocacy, collaboration, harm reduction, neuroaffective relational model, care ethics
People doing pioneering related work: Sue Johnson, Bessel van der Kolk, Laurence Heller
Trauma healing (cultural, within large groups of people)
Cultural understandings of life, lead by previously marginalized and silenced people.
Related terms: ancestral wisdom, consensus building, decarceration, interconnectedness, intersectional feminism, posthumanism, reparations, social justice, sovereignty
People doing pioneering related work: Bessel van der Kolk
Trauma and social justice
Trauma can be seen and used as an intersectional term. Healing trauma is a form of intersectional liberation. Trauma healing and social justice work require one another.
Trauma and design
Design is both a contributor to trauma and a tool that can be used for healing from trauma.
Design as an origin of trauma
When an experience of design (as a user of a designed thing, service, or experience; or as a person working within a design industry) functions as a trauma trigger for one or more people.
Related terms: dark patterns, disinformation, misrepresentation
People doing pioneering related work: Sasha Costanza-Chock, Lauren Klein, Catherine D'Ignazio, Katherine Hepworth, Christopher Church
Design as a source of healing from trauma
When an experience of design facilitates healing from trauma for one or more people.
Related terms: autonomous design, biofeedback, calm technology, cognitive justice, design activism, design justice, empathic computing, humane technology, inclusion nudges, decolonizing design, ethical visualization, data feminism, society centered design, harm reducing communication, person-first language, plain language
People doing pioneering related work: Arturo Escobar, Katherine Hepworth, Sasha Costanza-Chock, Lauren Klein, Catherine D'Ignazio, Charles Kostelnick, Marion Dork, Christopher Church, If Collective, Digital Democracy

Trauma and human rights centered design

How does human rights centered design relate to trauma? Our early thoughts on trauma as an intersectional term, and a lens through which to view human rights centered design work.

Trauma and social justice
Trauma can be seen and used as an intersectional term. Healing trauma is a form of intersectional liberation. Trauma healing and social justice work require one another.
Trauma and design
Design is both a contributor to trauma and a tool that can be used for healing from trauma.
Design as an origin of trauma
When an experience of design (as a user of a designed thing, service, or experience; or as a person working within a design industry) functions as a trauma trigger for one or more people.
Related terms: dark patterns, disinformation, misrepresentation
People doing pioneering related work: Sasha Costanza-Chock, Lauren Klein, Catherine D'Ignazio, Katherine Hepworth, Christopher Church
Design as a source of healing from trauma
When an experience of design facilitates healing from trauma for one or more people.
Related terms: autonomous design, biofeedback, calm technology, cognitive justice, design activism, design justice, empathic computing, humane technology, inclusion nudges, decolonizing design, ethical visualization, data feminism, society centered design, harm reducing communication, person-first language, plain language
People doing pioneering related work: Arturo Escobar, Katherine Hepworth, Sasha Costanza-Chock, Lauren Klein, Catherine D'Ignazio, Charles Kostelnick, Marion Dork, Christopher Church, If Collective, Digital Democracy

Consultancy

  • Digital Democracy
    Type: Consultancy | Topics: Trauma, justice, representation, visualization, sovereignty

Collective

Teaching

Repository

  • AI.Assembly
    Type: Repository | Topics: Trauma, machine learning

Concept, principles

Foundation, principles

Foundation

  • Reset.tech
    Type: Foundation | Topics: Trauma, funding, ethics

Concept

Chat

Concept, book, principles

  • Data feminism
    Type: Concept, book, principles | Topics: Trauma, justice

Documentation, collective

Manifesto

Manifesto, principles

Concept, teaching, principles

Institute

Collective, principles

Trigger self-care and first aid

When a trigger is experienced, there are many strategies from a wide range of knowledge traditions that can assist a triggered person with regulating, and accelerate returning to a non-triggered state. Some of the ones listed below we have found personally helpful.

  • jin shen point 17 - deactivates the vagus nerve
  • 3-4-5 breathing - stimulates the respiratory pacemaker in the brain
  • orienting ("here we all are, safe together") - speeds reversal of amygdala hijack through combination of somatic experiencing and prefrontal reasoning.
  • breath of fire - stimulates the respiratory pacemaker in the brain
  • chanting
  • therapeutic tremoring
  • patting
  • grounding
  • high energy movement / dancing