What is a traumatic event?

In the past, a traumatic event was defined as being outside the range of normal human experience.

Nowadays the definition emphasises both:

• the characteristics of the event,
• and the person’s response to the event

In terms of characteristics of the event, the person will have experienced, witnessed or been confronted with an event that involved actual or threatened death or serious injury, or a threat to their own or someone else’s physical integrity.

The person’s response to such an event would be a feeling of intense fear, helplessness or horror.