Effects Of Childhood Trauma

Terr, L. C. (1991). Childhood traumas: an outline and overview. Am J Psychiatry, 1, 48.

The sudden recovery of repressed memories from a traumatic event such as childhood sexual abuse can be both validating and confusing for clients that are seeking help with various problems. These new memories might be able to help client identify the cause of their feelings and issues that are affecting their life. However for others it can be a very difficult time because of the conflicting emotions about the abuser. Worst of all when dealing with the recovery of repressed memories they may be all together false. The accuracy of recovered memories in regards to sexual abuse is low and can come with significant consequences. These false memories can be very harmful to the client as

When I was five years old, my mom told me that there were some children who didn’t have moms. I was shocked, and told my mother frankly that I’d be their mom. Caring for children with early trauma has been the driving passion of my life. When I was six and again when I was eight, my parents adopted children from Vietnam. Having siblings who were born and orphaned in another country put a very personal face for me on human rights and child welfare issues around the world. I’ve spent the last four years working for the International Foster Care program at Catholic Charities Fort

This paper reviews several articles that discuss the lasting effects that sexual abuse can have on a child into their adult years. The articles agree that victims of child sexual abuse (CSA) will most likely suffer from posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and/or experience revictimization. This paper will also address the common forms of coping that victims of child sexual abuse take part in. Some research will touch on proper healing techniques for victims of CSA to receive.

One research article focus to explain that adults survivors of childhood sexual abuse are continually recovering memories due to the idea of dissociate memories. Meaning that during their abuse, children may disconnect their attention during molestation, and the more it repeatedly happens, the stronger seems to be the dissociation. The

Trauma is defined as “Any event (or events) that may cause or threaten death, serious injury, or sexual violence to an individual, a close family member, or a close friend” (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). These horrifying experiences leave individuals scarred and mentally shaken for an extensive period. However, what happens when it occurs in one of the most influential periods of mental development? Childhood development is a critical time in a person’s

The population of victims suffering from traumatic childhood experience fall into a group of adults that suffer from disturbances in mental, social, emotional and physical which is a minority group problem due to the majority of persons experiencing overall “good” health. It is incorrect to assume that there is a specific type of trauma that can impact a child in a specific way, it is also incorrect to assume that the adult who suffers from childhood trauma is a majority population (National Traumatic Child Stress Network, 2016). Trauma that specific ethnicities experience should also be handle with specific care to promote evidence based practice, if studies show that a certain ethnic group is more prone to a specific form of childhood trauma then social work practitioners should know this inform before to best assist their clients. Childhood trauma affects victims that are any racial population, and causes them to exhibit unhealthy social behavior for a prolonged period of time until they receive the assistance needed to help them cope appropriately and become healthy, citizens of society. In general, the vulnerability of youth allow them to be greater affected by traumatic occurrences and their ethnicity heightens their probability in having certain types of traumatic type of

The pervasiveness of these correlations is high and suggesting childhood trauma could play a major role in the psychological health of a person later in adulthood, and there have many studies which have been conducted that could support these theories.

Individuals that utilize avoidance mechanism can increase chances of preventing appropriate processing the traumatic event, which the post traumatic systems will dramatically increase (Briere, 2005). The primary goal of therapy through self- trauma therapy is to avoid exposing the child to high levels of post traumatic distress or discouragement. However it is also the therapist goal to facilitate exposure to traumatic exposure by limited where it does not overwhelm the child (Briere, 2004). Thus this increase awareness which a child may see as threatening, where a therapeutic exposure decreases the arousal through here and now

The client reported she was involved in a car accident in 2012 where her vehicle spun out of control. She denied she sustained any medical injuries. Stephanie reported she has experienced childhood trauma. Reportedly, when she was 8yoa her 12 year old cousin sexually molested her. She indicated, she informed her aunt, but was told not to say anything else about the incident. She also shared as an adult, her cousin whom molested prepositioned her to have sex with one of his friends. She stated she felt like a prostitute and a "piece of her had died." She further shared, she was raped by a male student, which resulted in a short term physically abusive relationship for four months. She stated she after they dissolved the relationship he admitted

The research study by Felitti, Anda et al, examined the relationship between household dysfunction and childhood abuse to many cause of death in Adults. These researchers hypothesized that increased in numbers of childhood abuse exposures has long-term relationship with adult morbidity and mortality rate. Childhood abuse seems to be “woven into a person’s soul, perhaps for one’s entire life time (DeFrain et al, 2003). And the frequency of childhood abuse and/or neglect is associated with different health risks behaviors, attitudes towards health, diseases and adult death. These traumas have immediate and long-term consequences on survivors’ physical and emotional development (Garcia, Adams, Friedman & East, 2002). It was also observed that

Complex trauma is a term that was established to differentiate traumas that occur repeatedly from traumas that happen in only one instance (herein referred to as “simple trauma”; Coutois, 2008). For instance, complex trauma is typically referred to in the context of abusive childhoods wherein the child experiences repeated traumatic events (e.g., physical or sexual abuse) over the course of their childhood. Often the trauma will occur in parent-child relationships leaving the victim under the control of the perpetrator (Herman, 1992). However, complex trauma is not limited to family violence, but can include other prolonged traumatic experiences, such as concentration camps and torture (Williams, 2006). Some researchers have argued that victims of complex trauma experience different psychological challenges than those who are victimized in one isolated incident (e.g., armed robbery). Coutois (2008) delineated seven problem areas that she believes are related to repeated early interpersonal trauma (i.e., complex trauma): 1) alterations in the regulation of affective impulses, 2) alterations in attention and consciousness, 3) alterations in self-perception, 4) alterations in perception of the perpetrator, 5) alterations in relationships to others, 6) somatization and/or medical problems, 7) alterations in

natural development and this lack of development can cause a negative impact on certain situations

Del Gaizo, Elhai, and Weaver (2011) indicated that the most methodologically sound studies that have evaluated lifetime traumatic event exposure using epidemiological data from the National Comorbidity Survey replication in the general population report prevalence of traumatic experiences ranging from 51% to 74%. Chronic exposure to stress hormones occurring in any stage of human development— the prenatal period, infancy, childhood, adolescence, adulthood or aging— has an impact on brain structures involved in cognition and mental health (Lupien, McEwen, Gunnar, & Heim, 2009). In a study of the taxonomy of trauma and trauma assessment, Kira (2001) elaborated on not only trauma across the lifespan but also single-step and multistep intergenerational

Judith Lewis Herman’s Trauma and Recovery provides not only greater understanding of how a traumatic event may defined but also the ways in which the effects of the experience may have a significantly repressing effect on the present and future self. Traumatic events are impressing on the self because they overwhelm the conventional emotional and physical perceptions that humanity has adjusted and modified their selves to. As traumatic events generally involve threats to the emotional and physical self, they differ from common misfortunes as they confront the victim with the feeling of extreme terror and helplessness that in result causes the individual to perceive the experience as one that was out of their control. As Herman reiterates, according to the Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry, “The common denominator of psychological trauma is a feeling of “intense fear, helplessness, loss of control, and threat of annihilation” (Herman 104). However, it is the response to the traumatic event in the emotional or conscious self that may differ from one another as there are three differing reactions to the terror factor of trauma: hyper-arousal, intrusion, and disconnection. Throughout this essay the work of Judith Lewis Herman’s Trauma and Recovery as well as Stephen Chbosky’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower will be utilized to illustrated the compromising effects a traumatic experience such as childhood sexual abuse may have on the development of a young teen and the ways in