Charles L. Whitfield is an American medical doctor in private practice specializing in assisting survivors of childhood trauma with their recovery, and with addictions including alcoholism and related disorders.
[1] Whitfield taught at Rutgers University and is a best-selling author known for his books on the topics of general childhood trauma, childhood sexual abuse, and addiction recovery, including Healing the Child Within and Memory and Abuse: Remembering and Healing the Effects of Trauma.
It was because of this study that Whitfield and his colleagues were able to take a step back and see what type of relationship with trauma one had as a child.
This helped show that having violent childhood experiences led to an increased risk of intimate partner violence.
The ACE study questionnaire was used to ask those involved about their adverse childhood experiences in detail, family and household dysfunction, and their health-related behaviors from their adolescence to their adult life.
In the result of this ACE study, women had the higher adverse childhood experiences scores than men in every category except physical abuse.
During the years of 1973 through 1985, Whitfield studied his patients and their lives after they went through the recovery and healing programs provided to them.
He noticed how effective it was for patients to get help early on as well as how many times people relapsed after going however so long without using.
According to Whitfield, "Most of their relapses usually turned out to be due to a low participation in a recovery program, or to their unhealed painful effects of trauma—or both."
For example, because of this ACE study, it has been easier for medical professionals to ask the right questions and/or look for the signs of people who have experienced childhood traumatic stressors and have had histories of hallucinations.
Adverse childhood experiences have a strong, relationship to risk of lifetime and current depressive disorders which to an extent implements child's adulthood which creates a negative impact on their growing age.