Emotional trauma is an experience of unendurable emotional pain. In my book Trauma and Human Existence, I claimed that the unbearability of emotional suffering cannot be explained solely, or even primarily, on the basis of the intensity of the painful feelings evoked by an injurious event. Emotional pain is not pathology—it is inherent to the human condition. Painful emotional states become unbearable when they cannot find a “relational home”—that is, a context of human understanding—in which they can be shared and held. Severe emotional pain that has to be experienced alone becomes lastingly traumatic and usually succumbs to some form of emotional numbing. This numbing flight from unendurable emotional pain is vividly illustrated by the bluesy song, "Numb," written by Stephanie Stolorow and performed by her and her brother Ben Stolorow under the name “Stoli Rose.” Here’s the link.