# Trauma and Theory of Mind - URL: https://alisanburak.com/en/travma-ve-zihin-kurami - Language: en - Last updated: 2026-08-29 - Page title: Trauma and Theory of Mind | Assoc. Prof. Dr. Alişan Burak Yaşar > What is theory of mind, and how does psychological trauma affect our ability to read other people's minds? A look through our own research. This page was translated automatically from Turkish. [Read the original](https://alisanburak.com/travma-ve-zihin-kurami) [← Back to blog](https://alisanburak.com/en/blog) # Trauma and Theory of Mind July 26, 2019Articles in Bilim ve Ütopya [Görsel: Trauma and Theory of Mind] In our two previous articles on the Bilim ve Ütopya portal, we discussed in detail the effects of psychological trauma on the human mind. In our July issue, Prof. Dr. Levent Sütçigil also presented its evolutionary background in a very accessible way. Stress and psychological trauma can have various effects on the mind's existing systems. These effects include sleep disturbances, flashbacks, negative emotions and thoughts that become persistently recurrent and intrusive, and more… Of course, experiencing all of these after a traumatic event also has considerable significance for human survival on Earth. Despite all this, there are still many questions about the effects of psychological trauma that need to be investigated. Research involving EMDR, CBT, and other psychotherapy methods now shows that traumatic stress symptoms can be treated with the right approaches. In other words, recovery is possible! The challenge here is to recognize and make sense of traumatic stress symptoms and to focus on treating them with the appropriate scientific approach. We now know that developmental trauma and trauma as we generally understand it can manifest in very different ways. At this point, a new study has been published in an area where we had some suspicions but could not find much research to support them scientifically. Moreover, we conducted this study in our own country, together with specialist clinical psychologist Dilara Usta and Assistant Professor Dr. Barış Önen ÜNSALVER. Although further research involving more people is needed, we believe that the study has yielded some very important initial findings. In this study, we compared patients with post-traumatic stress disorder with people who did not have the disorder. The question we wanted to explore by comparing the two groups was this: Could people who have experienced trauma have poorer theory of mind abilities than the other group? Could the difficulties reported by people with limited theory of mind abilities—even if they cannot name them as such—be due to the effects of their trauma? At this point, I would like to briefly introduce theory of mind. Theory of mind is defined as the ability to infer other people's mental states (thoughts, beliefs, desires, intentions, etc.), use this information to interpret what they will say, anticipate how they will behave, and predict what they will do next. Theory of mind is also defined as acting on inferences drawn from mental states such as beliefs, desires, intentions, imagination, and emotions. Having theory of mind requires a person to recognize that other people have minds different from their own, to understand their own or other people's mental states, such as intentions, beliefs, desires, and knowledge, and to have the capacity to represent these mentally. In other words, empathy as we commonly understand it, and more, is related to theory of mind abilities. In the study planned under the leadership of specialist psychologist Dilara Usta, people with post-traumatic stress disorder had lower scores on measures of theory of mind abilities than the comparison population, just as we had anticipated. In other words, trauma impaired theory of mind, which encompasses our capacity for empathy and more. So, for people whose mental health has been affected by trauma and who struggle with social relationships, empathy, and inferring other people's mental states, could trauma therapies also improve theory of mind when these difficulties stem from traumatic stress? A question worth considering! Yes, I think this will be our next research question… ## Our related study: Altunbaş, FD, Barış, OU, & Yaşar, AB (2019). Travma sonrası stres bozukluğu (TSSB) tanısı alan kişilerde zihin kuramı (ZK) ile ilgili bilişsel performansın boyutları. Nöropsikiyatrik Hastalık ve Tedavi, 15, 2015-2025. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.2147/NDT.S214595 --- *This article was first published on the Bilim ve Ütopya magazine's web portal on July 26, 2019. Since the portal has been taken offline, I am republishing the text here.* [← Previous Groups and Social Interaction 3: Respect Your Perceptions, Tip Your Hat to Them, but Don’t Take It Too Far](https://alisanburak.com/en/gruplar-ve-sosyal-etkilesim-3-algilariniza-saygi-duyun)[Next → EMDR Therapy and Its Effects on the Brain](https://alisanburak.com/en/emdr-terapisi-ve-beyin-uzerindeki-etkileri) --- Kaynak / Source: https://alisanburak.com/en/travma-ve-zihin-kurami İletişim / Contact: Bağdat Caddesi, Veli Güneysu Apt. No:453 K:4 D:9, Suadiye / Kadıköy, İstanbul · +90 532 642 95 25 · info@alisanburak.com · https://alisanburak.com/bagdat-caddesi-psikoterapi-iletisim