My article What is Complex Trauma? was published in December 2020 in the first issue of Perspectives on Complex Trauma, the journal of the Complex Trauma Institute.
I revised it in June 2022 as I had omitted to include rage as one of the symptoms of the unregulated fear system in the original article
I think it represents my clearest attempt so far to explain my theory that depression is our experience of the metabolic collapse triggered by the dorsal vagus branch of the parasympathetic nervous system, when the regulation provided by the ventral vagus is weakened.
Downloadable PDFs of the articles are attached below.
I would welcome feedback on these ideas and suggestions as to further relevant research.
Abstract
Diagnostic criteria relating to trauma, in ICD-11 and DSM 5, are presented as lists of symptoms with no attempt at understanding the mechanisms of trauma, or at seeing them in the context of human biological and social systems. This seriously limits their usefulness to the psychological therapist. This paper is an attempt at such an understanding, starting from the perspective of the biological fear system. It argues that trauma is an autonomic nervous system dysfunction in which fear responses cannot de-activate, and that complex trauma is the chronic failure of fear system de-activation and the impact of this failure on a wide range of other systems with detrimental consequences for physical and mental health and social integration.