This category includes events which are "bigger" than we can cope with in our daily lives. Such an event might be a car accident, shooting, sexual assault, mugging, near-drowning or severe fall. It can happen to us or to someone we care about -- the sudden death of a loved one, the loss of a job, a house-fire, or other catastrophic loss. Such events fall outside our normal range of experience, and the response may be traumatic shock or inescapable shock.

Trauma activates the nervous system, and it may not automatically revert to a pre-traumatic level of function. As a biological organism, you may experience disruptions such as disturbed sleep patterns, nightmares, diminished appetite, confusion, flashbacks or intrusive images, memory problems, anxiety or fatigue. You may find that you startle easily or become short-tempered, tearful or numb. You may notice your responses immediately, or they may arise after several days or weeks.

Such symptoms are common symptoms of traumatic shock. Counselling, including EMDR, is an effective way to assist the biological organism to restore function to pre-traumatic activation levels.

People who have experienced single incident traumatic events may experience peritraumatic dissociation. (Peri from Latin, "near.")  During a traumatic experience one may disconnect from one or many aspects of the experience. For example, if a person had a leg pinned under the dashboard in a bad car accident, he or she may dissociate from the sensation. Or one might dissociate the image of the large truck coming toward the car. Or the sound of the horn blaring to warn of the accident. These examples illustrate the inescapable aspect of traumatic shock. This type of dissociation is quite common in single-event adult-onset traumatic occurrences such as motor vehicle accidents, near-drownings and severe falls.