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Childhood Trauma
Introduction:
Childhood plays a critical role in personality formation of any individual. A normal childhood ensures that child grows up to a happy, healthy, balanced and successful individual. But witnessing or experiencing any form of violation as a child can lead to serious distortion in the personality of a child. According to the National Institute of Mental Health USA, childhood trauma refers to any experience that is emotionally painful or distressful for a child that leaves long-lasting mental and physical effects. This research paper will take into account various types of traumas and their impact on children.
Research Methodology:
Various studies have discussed the various aspects of childhood trauma. This research paper is using secondary research methodology for gathering the facts and information regarding the types of trauma and the ways in which it affects a child in the long term.
Discussion:
Trauma is the most misunderstood terminology, as it is often limited to the events that occur in one's life but in reality, it also includes those events that don’t happen in one’s life that causes long-lasting impacts. Childhood trauma includes the emotional, mental or physical abuses that are done to a child in the home or outside the home by the known or unknown person. Witnessing violence in home or outsides in the community can also result in trauma. This trauma includes the deprivations such as emotional, or physical neglect or the lack of affectionate events in childhood.
Studies indicate the specific outcomes that are associated with childhood physical abuse such as aggression, low self-esteem and maladaptive sexual behavior with sexual abuse. Abuse in childhood damage the child's sense of self which also leads to self-destructive behaviors. Childhood trauma can have various causes and its effects are also numerous. The pattern has been observed in the studies that children who experience one form of abuse are more likely to experience some other form of abuse. The abusive event can occur in nay despite the demographics and social quo but it is observed that children belonging to families with social and financial disadvantage are more prone to the abuse ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"BrwLa0kD","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Mullen et al.)","plainCitation":"(Mullen et al.)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":1727,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/KZl8ZL3A/items/NYXDRNMS"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/KZl8ZL3A/items/NYXDRNMS"],"itemData":{"id":1727,"type":"article-journal","title":"The long-term impact of the physical, emotional, and sexual abuse of children: A community study","container-title":"Child Abuse & Neglect","page":"7-21","volume":"20","issue":"1","source":"ScienceDirect","abstract":"The associations between giving a history of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse in children and a range of mental health, interpersonal, and sexual problems in adult life were examined in a community sample of women. Abuse was defined to establish groups giving histories of unequivocal victimization. A history of any form of abuse was associated with increased rates of psychopathology, sexual difficulties, decreased self-esteem, and interpersonal problems. The similarities between the three forms of abuse in terms of their association with negative adult outcomes was more apparent than any differences, though there was a trend for sexual abuse to be particularly associated to sexual problems, emotional abuse to low self-esteem, and physical abuse to marital breakdown. Abuse of all types was more frequent in those from disturbed and disrupted family backgrounds. The background factors associated with reports of abuse were themselves often associated to the same range of negative adult outcomes as for abuse. Logistic regressions indicated that some, though not all, of the apparent associations between abuse and adult problems was accounted for by this matrix of childhood disadvantage from which abuse so often emerged.\nRésumé\nFrench abstract not available at time of publication.\nResumen\nEn esta investigación se examinaron, en una muestra comunitaria de mujeres, las asociaciones entre la existencia de una historia de maltrato físico, maltrato emocional o abuso sexual en la infancia y una serie de problemas sexuales, interpersonales y de salud mental en la vida adulta. El maltrato fue definido de forma que se establecieran grupos con historias de victimización inequívocas. Una historia de cualquier forma de maltrato estaba asociada con aumento en las tasas de psicopatología, dificultades sexuales y problemas interpersonales y un descenso en la autoestima. Las semejanzas entre las tres formas de maltrato en cuanto a su asociación con consecuencias negativas en la época adulta eran más aparentes que cualquier diferencia. Sin embargo, se observaba una tendencia a que el abuso sexual estuviera particularmente asociado con problemas sexuales, el maltrato emocional con una baja autoestima y el maltrato físico con fracaso matrimonial. El maltrato de cualquier tipo se daba de manera más frecuente en aquellos sujetos con historias familiares alteradas y desorganizadas. Los factores de la historia familiar asociados con los informes de maltrato estaban, ellos mismos, a menudo asociados con el mismo rango de consecuencias negativas adultas que se habían asociado con el maltrato. Los análisis de regresión logística indicaron que algunas, aunque no todas, de las aparentes asociaciones entre maltrato y problemas adultos eran explicadas por dicha matriz de desventaja infantil, a partir de la cual emerge el maltrato tan frecuentemente.","DOI":"10.1016/0145-2134(95)00112-3","ISSN":"0145-2134","shortTitle":"The long-term impact of the physical, emotional, and sexual abuse of children","journalAbbreviation":"Child Abuse & Neglect","author":[{"family":"Mullen","given":"P. E."},{"family":"Martin","given":"J. L."},{"family":"Anderson","given":"J. C."},{"family":"Romans","given":"S. E."},{"family":"Herbison","given":"G. P."}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["1996",1,1]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Mullen et al.). Revictimization is really common in women who have been sexually abused in their childhood. The rape victims of child abuse are more likely to experience abuse from their husbands or boyfriends ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"fyilOgqu","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Green)","plainCitation":"(Green)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":1729,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/KZl8ZL3A/items/3ERJZLVS"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/KZl8ZL3A/items/3ERJZLVS"],"itemData":{"id":1729,"type":"article-journal","title":"Child Sexual Abuse: Immediate and Long-Term Effects and Intervention","container-title":"Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry","page":"890-902","volume":"32","issue":"5","source":"ScienceDirect","abstract":"Objective\nThe primary purpose of this review is to highlight the progress made in the area of child sexual abuse during the recent decade and to identify the gaps in our current knowledge about this syndrome.\nMethod\nMore than 100 articles on child sexual abuse were reviewed, the majority written from 1980 to the present concerning the demographics of child sexual abuse, the psychological effects of child sexual victimization, the psychopathology encountered in adult survivors of child sexual abuse, hypotheses regarding the nature of the trauma, a critique of the research, and approaches to intervention.\nResults\nAlthough a wide variety of psychological sequelae have been documented in sexually abused children referred for evaluation or treatment, there appears to be considerable variability in the severity of the symptoms, and we remain ignorant of sequelae in abused children who never enter the mental health system. However, some of these children may become symptomatic in adult life. Validation of sexual abuse is hampered by the lack of specific behavioral markers. Methodological difficulties in child sexual abuse research include problems with definition, failure to measure severity of the abuse, sampling problems, failure to use standardized or appropriate instruments, problems with validation, and failure to use control groups.\nConclusions\nDespite an increased focus on child sexual abuse in the recent decade, many gaps remain in our knowledge. Prospective longitudinal follow-up studies of sexually abused children and treatment outcome studies are urgently needed.","DOI":"10.1097/00004583-199309000-00002","ISSN":"0890-8567","shortTitle":"Child Sexual Abuse","journalAbbreviation":"Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry","author":[{"family":"Green","given":"ARTHUR H."}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["1993",9,1]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Green).
Abuser Identity
Child abusers can belong to any profession and can belong to any known or unknown category. Often children from broken families experience abuse in the home settings. The physical, sexual or emotional abuser can be a close family member, teacher, parent, relative or an unknown individual. In an experiment, 2,250 women were randomly selected to examine both specific associations between the histories of the sexual, emotional and physical abuse to the negative adult outcomes. The questionnaires were distributed in the women regarding the mental, demographics, sexual and physical abuse as a child. Around 21.5% of women reported some form of child abuse. From this sample, 7.8% of women reported physical abuse and 11.5 % emotional abuse. The study revealed that 23% reported sexual and physical abuse from the hands of the fathers and stepfathers and 45% reported such abuse from an individual who is not part of an immediate family ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"BkQxcTFC","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Mullen et al.)","plainCitation":"(Mullen et al.)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":1727,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/KZl8ZL3A/items/NYXDRNMS"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/KZl8ZL3A/items/NYXDRNMS"],"itemData":{"id":1727,"type":"article-journal","title":"The long-term impact of the physical, emotional, and sexual abuse of children: A community study","container-title":"Child Abuse & Neglect","page":"7-21","volume":"20","issue":"1","source":"ScienceDirect","abstract":"The associations between giving a history of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse in children and a range of mental health, interpersonal, and sexual problems in adult life were examined in a community sample of women. Abuse was defined to establish groups giving histories of unequivocal victimization. A history of any form of abuse was associated with increased rates of psychopathology, sexual difficulties, decreased self-esteem, and interpersonal problems. The similarities between the three forms of abuse in terms of their association with negative adult outcomes was more apparent than any differences, though there was a trend for sexual abuse to be particularly associated to sexual problems, emotional abuse to low self-esteem, and physical abuse to marital breakdown. Abuse of all types was more frequent in those from disturbed and disrupted family backgrounds. The background factors associated with reports of abuse were themselves often associated to the same range of negative adult outcomes as for abuse. Logistic regressions indicated that some, though not all, of the apparent associations between abuse and adult problems was accounted for by this matrix of childhood disadvantage from which abuse so often emerged.\nRésumé\nFrench abstract not available at time of publication.\nResumen\nEn esta investigación se examinaron, en una muestra comunitaria de mujeres, las asociaciones entre la existencia de una historia de maltrato físico, maltrato emocional o abuso sexual en la infancia y una serie de problemas sexuales, interpersonales y de salud mental en la vida adulta. El maltrato fue definido de forma que se establecieran grupos con historias de victimización inequívocas. Una historia de cualquier forma de maltrato estaba asociada con aumento en las tasas de psicopatología, dificultades sexuales y problemas interpersonales y un descenso en la autoestima. Las semejanzas entre las tres formas de maltrato en cuanto a su asociación con consecuencias negativas en la época adulta eran más aparentes que cualquier diferencia. Sin embargo, se observaba una tendencia a que el abuso sexual estuviera particularmente asociado con problemas sexuales, el maltrato emocional con una baja autoestima y el maltrato físico con fracaso matrimonial. El maltrato de cualquier tipo se daba de manera más frecuente en aquellos sujetos con historias familiares alteradas y desorganizadas. Los factores de la historia familiar asociados con los informes de maltrato estaban, ellos mismos, a menudo asociados con el mismo rango de consecuencias negativas adultas que se habían asociado con el maltrato. Los análisis de regresión logística indicaron que algunas, aunque no todas, de las aparentes asociaciones entre maltrato y problemas adultos eran explicadas por dicha matriz de desventaja infantil, a partir de la cual emerge el maltrato tan frecuentemente.","DOI":"10.1016/0145-2134(95)00112-3","ISSN":"0145-2134","shortTitle":"The long-term impact of the physical, emotional, and sexual abuse of children","journalAbbreviation":"Child Abuse & Neglect","author":[{"family":"Mullen","given":"P. E."},{"family":"Martin","given":"J. L."},{"family":"Anderson","given":"J. C."},{"family":"Romans","given":"S. E."},{"family":"Herbison","given":"G. P."}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["1996",1,1]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Mullen et al.).
Effects of Childhood Trauma
Victims of childhood trauma show various physical and psychological symptoms and often lead to psychiatric disorders. Few impacts of the trauma associated with childhood abuse are mentioned below.
Anxiety and depression
The threat of depression and anxiety is higher in the survivors of childhood abuse. Usually, these anxiety symptoms are chronic. The unconscious connection exists between the trauma and the PTSD, a condition in which the anxiety gets trigger by the memory of the abusive events. Depress survivors of the trauma suffer from isolation, low self-esteem, stigmatization and negative self-image ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"mmzgCYXu","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Kuyken and Brewin)","plainCitation":"(Kuyken and Brewin)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":1731,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/KZl8ZL3A/items/M5BUSSN8"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/KZl8ZL3A/items/M5BUSSN8"],"itemData":{"id":1731,"type":"article-journal","title":"Intrusive memories of childhood abuse during depressive episodes","container-title":"Behaviour Research and Therapy","page":"525-528","volume":"32","issue":"5","source":"ScienceDirect","abstract":"A sample of adult women with major depression who reported childhood sexual or physical abuse completed a measure of the extent to which they were experiencing intrusive memories of the abuse and their efforts to avoid these memories. The majority of women in the sample reported high levels of disturbing intrusive memories, and high levels of avoidance. Those abused women with particularly high levels of intrusions and more avoidance were also more severely depressed than both non-abused women and abused women with low levels of intrusions and avoidance. Higher levels of intrusions and avoidance were also associated with repeated childhood abuse, sexual abuse involving intercourse and sexual abuse involving a primary caregiver.","DOI":"10.1016/0005-7967(94)90140-6","ISSN":"0005-7967","journalAbbreviation":"Behaviour Research and Therapy","author":[{"family":"Kuyken","given":"Willem"},{"family":"Brewin","given":"Chris R."}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["1994",6,1]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Kuyken and Brewin).
Poor development
The risk of poor physical and intellectual development increases in physically abused children. Such children also show aggressive tendencies towards their peers and form difficulty in forming lasting bonds with friends. Studies show that adults who have suffered as a child develop criminal tendencies ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"yiyGmvI5","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Brown and Ward)","plainCitation":"(Brown and Ward)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":1733,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/KZl8ZL3A/items/X7DWYNUY"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/KZl8ZL3A/items/X7DWYNUY"],"itemData":{"id":1733,"type":"article-journal","title":"Decision-making within a child’s timeframe: an overview of current research evidence for family justice professionals concerning child development and the impact of maltreatment","source":"dspace.lboro.ac.uk","abstract":"This overview of research evidence was commissioned in response to the Family Justice Review recommendation for consistent training and development for family justice professionals, including a greater emphasis on child development.\r\n\r\nAims and Objectives\r\nThe aim of this study was to bring together key research evidence to facilitate understanding among professionals working in the family justice system in the following areas:\r\n\r\n• Neuroscience perspectives on children's cognitive, social and emotional development.\r\n• The implications of maltreatment on childhood and adulthood wellbeing.\r\n• Evidence on the outcomes of intervention by the courts and children's social care.\r\n• Timeframes for intervening and how they fit (or don't) with those for children.\r\n\r\nThe paper is intended to assist decision-making by family justice professionals and facilitate a greater understanding of individual children's needs and appropriate timeframes.","URL":"https://dspace.lboro.ac.uk/dspace-jspui/handle/2134/18187","shortTitle":"Decision-making within a child’s timeframe","language":"en","author":[{"family":"Brown","given":"Rebecca"},{"family":"Ward","given":"Harriet"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2012"]]},"accessed":{"date-parts":[["2019",4,4]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Brown and Ward).
Suicidal behavior and early deaths
Suicidal behavior also increases in the survivors of child abuse. The more child has abused the more risk of suicide increases in the child (Green). According to a report around 51% of the adults, sexual victims have attempted suicide in comparison to the non-victims. The Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) study revealed that in individuals who have experienced the abusive behavior or trauma the risk of unhealthy behaviors increases by 12 folds. These behaviors and risks include smoking, poor health issues, sexually transmitted diseases, inactivity, and obesity. This study proved that exposure to abuse or family dysfunctionality has a strong connection to the various health problems that lead to the early deaths of the patients (JFelitti, FAnda, and Nordenberg).
Psychological disorders
A borderline personality disorder is a common disorder in children who suffer from childhood sexual trauma. This order can be present in the non-victims, but its risk increases in the survivors of sexual abuse. Multiple personality disorder and sexual dysfunctions are also common in individuals who have experienced trauma in some way in their lives.
Results and Conclusion:
Traumas are difficult to deal with, but their impacts become too strong in case of children. Such children start to take the traumatic event as the guide map in their lives and use it to build their opinions about the world. Children see everything as a guide to form their opinions and occurrence of traumatic, abusive events damage their ability to interpret the world and its happenings in the positive light.
It is really essential for a child to deal with the traumatic situations and grow out of it, otherwise, it not only affects their mental health but physical health as well. Such children often wrap themselves in attire of victimization and spend their whole lives feeling like a victim, which make them unable to control their lives. Such individuals grow to be an unsuccessful adult.
The role of the parents, teachers and family members can definitely help the victims to heal out of their traumatic experience. Seeking help from the counselors and psychiatrists can help such children live a normal healthy life. Help from Licences professional counselors and trauma professional can also prove to be useful. Various therapies are proven to really effective in overcoming the effects of the trauma.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is really effective in individuals with PTSD. It teaches the victims to replace the negative emotions, feelings of helplessness with positive thoughts and emotions. Otherwise, the effects of the trauma can impacts their whole lives negatively. Behavioral strategies can help in desensitize the upsetting parts of the trauma so that child can move on from the fear of the event. EMDR is another therapy that if combines with Cognitive therapy, can help the child in dealing with stress associated with memory.
The intensity and duration of a traumatic event is not an important constraint, as one trauma can affect different individuals differently. Depending on the individual's perception of the trauma and feelings associated with the event decides the intensity of the impact. If the childhood traumas are not treated at a young age, they can haunt the victims psychologically, physically and emotionally in various ways and can keep them handicapped emotionally and psychologically for the rest of their lives.
Works Cited
ADDIN ZOTERO_BIBL {"uncited":[],"omitted":[],"custom":[]} CSL_BIBLIOGRAPHY Brown, Rebecca, and Harriet Ward. Decision-Making within a Child’s Timeframe: An Overview of Current Research Evidence for Family Justice Professionals Concerning Child Development and the Impact of Maltreatment. 2012. dspace.lboro.ac.uk, https://dspace.lboro.ac.uk/dspace-jspui/handle/2134/18187.
Green, ARTHUR H. “Child Sexual Abuse: Immediate and Long-Term Effects and Intervention.” Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, vol. 32, no. 5, Sept. 1993, pp. 890–902. ScienceDirect, doi:10.1097/00004583-199309000-00002.
Kuyken, Willem, and Chris R. Brewin. “Intrusive Memories of Childhood Abuse during Depressive Episodes.” Behaviour Research and Therapy, vol. 32, no. 5, June 1994, pp. 525–28. ScienceDirect, doi:10.1016/0005-7967(94)90140-6.
Mullen, P. E., et al. “The Long-Term Impact of the Physical, Emotional, and Sexual Abuse of Children: A Community Study.” Child Abuse & Neglect, vol. 20, no. 1, Jan. 1996, pp. 7–21. ScienceDirect, doi:10.1016/0145-2134(95)00112-3.
JFelitti, Vincent, Robert FAnda, and Dale Nordenberg. "Relationship Of Childhood Abuse And Household Dysfunction To Many Of The Leading Causes Of Death In Adults: The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study." (2019): n. pag. Web. 4 Apr. 2019.
