A Child Who Has Disruptive Attachment Will Face Many Issues

Trauma is perceived as a physical or psychological threat or assault to a person’s physical integrity, sense of self, safety and/or survival or to the physical safety of a significant other; family member, friend, partner. (Kilpatrick, Saunders, and Smith, 2003). An adolescent may experience trauma from a variety of experiences, including but not limited to: abuse (sexual, physical, and/or emotional); neglect; abandonment; bullying; exposure to domestic violence and/ or community violence; natural disasters; medical procedures; loss/grief due to a death of a family member(s); surgery; accidents or serious illness; and war (Kilpatrick, Saunders, and Smith, 2003).

Sixty percent of adults report experiencing abuse or other difficult family circumstances during childhood. (Mental Health Connection, N.D.). This shocking statistic exemplifies the high prevalence of childhood trauma. Furthermore, twenty-six percent of children in the United States will witness or experience a traumatic event before the age of four. (Mental Health Connection, N.D.) Trauma is an extremely common and complex phenomenon. But what is trauma? According to Merriam Webster, trauma is defined as, “a disordered psychic or behavioral state resulting from severe mental or emotional stress or physical injury.” (Merriam Webster, 2017). Dr. Lenore C. Terr from the Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Clinics of America further describes trauma as unique to each individual. It can be caused by a series of events or one severe incident. Unfortunately, childhood trauma is usually experienced repeatedly. For example, many children endure sexual abuse, bullying, and severe family problems over and over again. Children may experience a variety of traumas that have lasting consequences on their mental health. Those who experience childhood trauma are more likely to develop psychological disorders. This occurs because their brains lack neuroplasticity, which inhibits their ability to adapt to various stressful circumstances.

The core-concept of an individual is largely influenced by one’s ability to regulate internal emotional states and one’s behavioral reactions to external stress. Children who experience trauma have difficulty managing their emotional states thus leading to poor perceptions of themselves. A distorted sense of self can potentially lead to loss of autobiographical memories, poor body image, and disturbances in sense of separateness in which the person may appear detached and distant (Carr, 2012). It may also lead to difficulty with impulse control which includes aggression

r care can prevent kids from forming healthy relationships and bonds with peers and adults if they constantly change foster homes. Multiple caregivers, abuse, neglect and abandonment can result in reactive attachment disorder, signified by strained relationships and a general lack of interested in socialization with others. The mental effects include distrust, and uncertainty in others, heightened by anxiety, fear and depression. Behavioral symptoms include avoidance of physical contact, straying from social interaction, remaining withdrawn, acting preoccupied or detached from people or activities, devoid of outward emotion and wanting to remain alone.

Because the experience of childhood trauma can create a situation that requires the minds of trauma survivors to take either conscious or subconscious measures to deal with it in some way depending on its severity, their minds can use one of many coping strategies, or methods used by individuals to cope with negative circumstances that are not only limited to mental coping mechanisms, to manage the experience of this trauma and its effects. However, although these coping strategies may be intended to give trauma survivors the ability to deal with the traumatic experiences they have undergone, such strategies also have the capacity to shape, disrupt, and manipulate the manner in which trauma survivors interact with others, especially family

The impact of traumatic events can alter the developmental and function of the brain. When experienced a traumatic event, it can affect an individual mentally and physically. “Individuals in chronically abusive relationships, of any type of abuse have shown to experience complex symptomatology above and beyond that of individuals experiencing one-incident traumatic events. However, some researchers have found that psychological abuse, which would qualify for PTSD diagnosis only if physical integrity was also threatened, is as s stronger predictor than physical abuse of trauma symptoms” ( Orzeck & Chin, 2010). Traumatic events such as physical abuse cause development in majority of women can cause not only cause temporary or permanent damage but also psychological damage. After a traumatic event an individual can find oneself having difficulty connecting and

In the psychology of development, clinical application of the development of children who have suffered trauma is important. The clinical application helps in understanding the roles of new attachment and problems in bonding during the early life of a child. The use of new theoretical perspectives on attachment proposes that a CYC staff should identify the causes of behavioral attachment. A model to best utilize the clinical processes treats all the attachment disturbances such as no attachment, disrupted attachment, and anxious attachment. In the case of the 14-year-old girl, having a developmental plan will help diagnose if there are any problems that have been caused by the trauma as well as expose any other therapeutic complexities that

strong attachment dysfunction. Recruiting for this study will involve school social workers and local agencies who work with children and adolescents.

It is shocking for me to see the statistics about trauma for young children. According to the article, Understanding Early Childhood Mental Health, it states that an estimated 44, 512 children younger than 3 years were exposed to trauma sometime during 2009 and this represents 33.4% of all children who were exposed to trauma during that year. This numbers are higher than I expected. This case of trauma to children will have a huge impact to children’s learning as they will have some symptoms of trauma, such as sleep problems, eating problems, stress, regression and aggressive outburn as the PowerPoint mentions. Their education will be affected as they do not have that energy to go to school and be consistent in their studies.

The exposure of chronic stress/trauma, most often resulting in complex trauma, has a significant impact on LAYN’s young people, disrupting their development and placing their social wellbeing at risk (Cook, Blaustein, Spinazzola & van der Kolk, 2003). Complex trauma has been identified to impair the following areas of functioning in children and youth: attachment, biology, affect regulation, disassociation, behavioral regulation, cognition and self-concept (Cook, et al., 2003; Courtois & Ford, 2013). These impairments result in many of the problematic behaviors that young people engage in while at LAYN including:

The relationship between security of attachment and cognitive development creates the underlying foundation from which individual’s operate throughout the lifespan (Carruth, 2006). The security of attachment between an infant and their primary caregiver can have profound consequences for the developing brain, impacting an infant’s future relationships, self-esteem, and ability to self-regulate emotions (Carruth, 2006). Attachment theory, first theorized by John Bowlby (1988), stresses the significance of secure attachments in relation to cognitive development. Secure attachment is correlated with a decrease in high risk behaviors, fewer mental health issues, positive coping strategies, and healthy social skills (Burkett & Young, 2012

Trauma can be described as a severe emotional or mental distress caused by an experience that impedes one’s ability to cope. According to the American Psychiatric Association (2000), Traumatic experiences can significantly alter a person’s perception of themselves, their environment and the people around them. Traumatic experiences can manifest itself and, in turn, have a greater impact on one’s ability to function. The ongoing effects of trauma and the intensity of the experience as stated by Evans and Coccoma (2014), can have an impact on all aspects of human life that is inclusive of the biological, cognitive, emotional and social interactions.

I will use 150 young adults (18-35 years old) for the study. Participants will be a nonprobability sample recruited on a voluntary basis from participating couple’s counseling offices. They will be recruited from a couple’s counselor because it is a convenient way to find individuals who are having issues in their current relationship. This will expedite the process of looking for a connection between childhood trauma and its effect on current relationship problems. Flyers will be put in the counselor’s lobby with information about the study, instruction for how to volunteer, and researcher contact information. The flyer will clearly state that all participants will be given a confidentiality agreement.

It is well acknowledge that Interpersonal attunement in relationships, whereby the child has a secure attachment, helps to develop intrapersonal attunement, such as mindfulness within the individual (Ma, 2008). Mindfulness is not only attributed to to increasing emotional regulation but also to lower stress and anxiety levels (Snyder, Shapiro and Treleaven, 2012). This is of particular relevance for children that have a history of trauma, affects multiple brain sites thus hampering the individual ability to regulate their emotions when stressed (Newton, 2008).

Across the board, childhood trauma is a major contributor to serious psychological disorders. The damage done to a child's sense of security, contentment with his or her self, and ability to form relationships with others is profound and irreversible. In some cases it is not even manageable. The effects of childhood trauma can manifest in several different ways, but whether it presents as PTSD, BPD, or DID, the physiological and psychological results of prolonged trauma can be traced back to early life harm and neglect.