Do Wild Animals Experience Trauma?

It seems that wild animals don’t suffer what we would call trauma – they experience events but seem to let them pass. Is trauma a specifically human experience? Rupert says: ‘Trauma happens when an event gets stuck in the mind. The event has passed, but the mind keeps rehearsing it. Animals experience unpleasant, traumatic experiences, but those experiences pass through their mind. There’s nothing in them that holds onto them. There are some experiences which are either so pleasant or unpleasant that you hold onto them. Any experience that provokes the “I don’t want this” or “I do like this, I want to hold onto it” thought gets lodged in your mind, and that’s your trauma.’

From event 07 - 14 September, 2025 Seven-Day Retreat at Mandali, 7–14 September 2025 – ‘Meister Eckhart and the Love of God’

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