A Social Science Perspective on Trauma and Affective Integration

I propose a provisional framework that views trauma not as the event itself but as unprocessed emotion that exceeds the system’s capacity. It outlines phases from latent trauma through emotional spillover, naming and contextualization, embodied regulation, and eventual integration through volitional agency. The piece is exploratory and hypothesis-driven, offering a social science perspective on how trauma may be metabolized and suggesting broader implications for human baseline well-being and research bias.