Selye implies that stress involves any experience that requires adaptation by the body - in other words, that poses a threat to health. Trauma may simplistically be defined as stress in the face of helplessness. This simple, relatively precise definition lends itself to a significant revision of our concepts of trauma, and has implications for how we look at the effects and symptoms of trauma, the role of culture and social adaptations, diagnosis and methods of healing trauma. In this workshop, we'll push the limits in how we need to define trauma in order to understand and treat its effects on the body and mind. We'll explore such things as preverbal trauma, the trauma of grief and loss, the health results of trauma and the trauma of our system of healthcare, and the incredibly varied physical and emotional expressions of the traumatic experience that are ignored in the DSM-IV. This will lead us to a theoretical model for the essential ingredients in trauma healing.