When an animal is attacked, e.g., by a lion, it will sometimes completely freeze (which often causes the predator to lose interest). Many different species and families of animals do this, but according to Peter Levine writing a few decades ago, in no species except human is there any evidence that having undergone this freezing response has long-term consequences. There seems to be something about the human mind (or the human lifestyle in modern times) that makes the freezing response tend to have very persistent effects.
I would like to call this freezing response psychological trauma. I think many experts use the phrase that way. Certainly the OP is using the term this way. But if people are going to use "traumatic experience" to refer to any very aversive experience or any experience that makes the person very sad, like you just did, then that is kind of a drag because most very aversive experiences, e.g., death of one's child, do not cause the freezing response or do so only rarely. Must those of us who wish to discuss the human version of this freezing response come up with a different term?
I would like to call this freezing response psychological trauma. I think many experts use the phrase that way. Certainly the OP is using the term this way. But if people are going to use "traumatic experience" to refer to any very aversive experience or any experience that makes the person very sad, like you just did, then that is kind of a drag because most very aversive experiences, e.g., death of one's child, do not cause the freezing response or do so only rarely. Must those of us who wish to discuss the human version of this freezing response come up with a different term?