One morning a young boy presents to the agency suffering from scratches and bruises he reports he sustained in a fight with his father when he tried to go back home for a visit. He is shaking, confused and agitated and heavily bruised. He tells you that he gets frightened every time he sees someone with the same physical features as his dad and that since the event he has been angry all the time. He makes comments that everything in his life and the world is bad. He tells you that he has lost hope that his life will ever be better. Identify trauma symptoms he is exhibiting.

What are at least 10 of the things you should do?

 

The boy has experience physical abuse from his father creating a trauma from this experience. Here are the trauma symptoms that he exhibit:

• Anger or irritable- He would exhibit being angry all the time when he would remember the physical abuse.
• Fear and anxiety- He would be frightened whenever he sees the same injuries on others
• Hopelessness- He thought that he lost the will to live.

These are the feelings of the boy after the physical abuse from his father was inflicted to him. Traumas could come from sexual and physical abuse, violence and neglect. As a person witnessing this kind of physical trauma. These are the least 10 things that an individual should do:

• Listens attentively and sincerely. When they are talking about the event, just listens carefully and try not to interrupt the boy when stating the facts about the event
• Tell his actions are normal. Do not judge his actions to be abnormal. you should consider that he experience a physical abuse and not you. His action and thoughts are basically caused by the trauma itself
• Be with them without judging them. Do not judge their feeling and actions. Remember to try to put yourself in his shoes.
• Don't force them to talk about what happened. Do not insist to talk about the event from the person especially that he did not want to recall such painful events. Try to wait when he is ready to tell the whole event.
• Exhibit that you care for them. Learn to understand their situation as much as possible. Be patient and help them not to isolate themselves even more.
• Do not assume that you know what are they feeling. Do not exhibit that you know everything especially on what are they feeling, about their actions and what could they possibly do. Remember that they experienced the physical abuse and not you.
• Do not use positive words. Do not advice to look on to the positive side or tell them that it's gonna be okay. Learn to respect space and let them think on what they are having or wanted to do.
• Try to balance the socializing aspect of the person. Letting them isolate themselves for a short time is okay but try to advice them to do socializing to others to minimize the loneliness that they are feeling.
• Advice him to do recreational activities. Try to advice him to do recreational activities such as exercising to reduce the stress level he is experiencing.
• Make them smile or laugh. Laughing is the best medicine to do when a person is feeling down or sad.

Step-by-step explanation

I arrived to my answer based on the story about the boy who experienced physical abuse from his father. I try to enumerate the symptoms from the trauma he accumulated based on the abuse he experienced. He exhibit anger, fear, anxiety, and feeling hopelessness. These feeling are very common when experiencing a trauma especially when it came from violence, physical or verbal abuse, neglect and feeling unsafe. I add meaning to each symptom and coordinate it with the boy's experience. On the other hand, I enumerate also the 10 things that an individual should do when a person seeks for his help. I also try to include their meaning for a person to easily understand the positive impacts of these things to a person who experience such physical abuse.