Childhood trauma
[9] Childhood trauma is often linked to various health issues including depression, hypertension, autoimmune diseases, lung cancer, and premature mortality.
Recent research suggests that mental health outcomes from childhood trauma may be better understood through a dimensional framework (internalizing and externalizing) as opposed to specific disorders.
Trauma experienced in childhood may also increase vulnerability to developing severe mental health conditions, such as psychosis, as the individual may have a compromised ability to regulate their emotions.
[17] As an adult, feelings of anxiety, worry, shame, guilt, helplessness, hopelessness, grief, sadness, and anger that started with a trauma in childhood can persist.
In addition, those who experience trauma as a child are more likely to face mental health challenges such as anxiety, depression, suicide and self harm, PTSD, substance misuse, and relationship difficulties.
[19][20] They are also more likely to develop a "heightened stress response" which can make it difficult for them to regulate their emotions, lead to sleep difficulties, lower immune function, and increase the risk of a number of physical illnesses throughout adulthood.
[29] Animal models have demonstrated that stress exposure can result in epigenetic alterations in the next generation, and such mechanisms have been hypothesized to underpin vulnerability to symptoms in offspring of trauma survivors.
[35][36][37] A growing body of literature suggests that children's experiences of trauma and abuse within close relationships not only jeopardize their well-being in childhood, but can also have long-lasting consequences that extend well into adulthood.
[38] These long-lasting consequences can include emotion regulation issues, which can then be passed onto subsequent generations through child-parent interactions and learned behaviors.
[39] (see also behavioral epigenetics, historical trauma, and cycle of violence) The social and economic costs of child abuse and neglect are difficult to calculate.
Other costs, which are less directly tied to the incidence of abuse, include lower academic achievement, adult criminality, and lifelong mental health problems.
[40][41] For example, children who experience maltreatment are more likely to perform poorly in school, which can limit their future economic opportunities and increase likelihood of unemployment.
[45] Resilience has been found to decrease risk of suicide, depression, anxiety and other mental health struggles associated with exposure to trauma in childhood.
[45] Furthermore, the severity and duration of the potentially traumatic experience affect the likelihood of experiencing negative outcomes as a result of childhood trauma.
[44] Children with secure attachments to an adult with effective coping strategies were most likely to endure adverse childhood experiences in an adaptive manner.
[44] Individuals who scored low in neuroticism exhibit fewer negative outcomes, such as psychopathology, criminal activity, and poor physical health, after exposure to a potentially traumatic event.
[45] Studies suggest that resiliency can be enhanced by providing children who have been exposed to trauma with environments in which they feel safe and are able to securely attach to a healthy adult.
[64] Community violence exposure whether direct, or indirect, is associated with many negative mental health outcomes among children and adolescents including internalizing trauma-related symptoms,[65] academic problems,[66] substance abuse,[67] and suicidal ideation.
For example, cognitive complications (dissociation), affective, somatic, behavioral, relational, and self-attributional problems have been seen in individuals who have experienced complex trauma.
[72] Beyond the experience of natural and man-made disasters themselves, disaster-related traumas include the loss of loved ones, disruptions caused by disaster-caused homelessness and hardship and the breakdown of community structures.
[76] Witnessing violence and threats against a caregiver during early years of life is associated with severe impacts on a child's health and development.
Outcomes for children include psychological distress, behavioral disorders, disturbances in self-regulation, difficulties with social interaction, and disorganized attachment.
[86] Studies of refugee youth report high levels of exposure to war related trauma and have found profound averse consequences of these experiences for children's mental health.
Some outcomes from experiencing trauma in refugee children are behavioral problems, mood and anxiety disorders, PTSD, and adjustment difficulty.
[93] Traumatic grief is distinguished from the traditional grieving process in that the child is unable to cope with daily life and may not even remember a loved one outside of the circumstances of his death.
[104] Many studies provide evidence that CBT is effective for treating PTSD in terms of magnitude of symptom reduction from pre-treatment levels, and diagnostic recovery.
[111] The intervention has the patient recall traumatic memories and use bilateral stimulation such as eye movements or finger tapping to help regulate their emotions.
[111] A randomized controlled trial showed that EMDR reduced symptoms of PTSD in children who had been exposed to a single-traumatic event, and was cost-effective.
[114] A study of 126 children found Real Life Heroes treatment to be effective in reducing symptoms of PTSD and in improving behavioral problems.
Each marker varies in the degree to which specific narrative and emotion process indicators are represented in one-minute time segments drawn from videotaped therapy sessions.
