The Effects of Childhood Abuse and Trauma

Those who don’t experience abuse…• People whose integrity has not been damaged in childhood,

who were protected, respected, and treated with honesty by their parents, will be--both in their youth and adulthood--intelligent, responsive, empathetic, and highly sensitive.

They will take pleasure in life and will not feel any need to hurt others or themselves.

They will use their power to defend themselves but not to attack others

• They will not be able to do otherwise than to respect and protect those weaker than themselves, including their children, because this is what they have learned from their own experience and because it is this knowledge (and not the experience of cruelty) that has been stored up inside them from the beginning.

• After you're born, the greatest impact on the brain you'll have as an adult comes from the experiences you have in the first years of your life. At its best, the right learning opportunities and a nurturing childhood can give the basis for a healthy, happy adult.

• On the other end, stress and trauma during development, such as that endured during physical abuse or lack of parental involvement, can have lasting negative outcomes.

3

Those who do experience childhood abuse…

1) Brain Physically Changes 1) Parts of the brain have been shown to shrink or

decrease in volume2) Frontal lobe does not develop the same as a

normal brain3) Limbic brain (controls emotions, primitive feelings)

tends to dominate - Leads to reacting in a flight/flight/freeze way even to minor situations

Those who do experience childhood abuse…

1) Brain Physically Changes 1) Left brain struggles to develop, affecting language

“The longer the maltreatment, the smaller the brain and corpus callosum and the lower the child’s IQ.”

-Cohen, Perel, DeBellis, et al. (2002)

2) Left and right hemispheres are less connected – can lead to radical shifts in mood and personality

3) Multiple personalities, schizophrenia, and other mental disorders are more likely to develop in abused children

Those who do experience childhood abuse…

2) Emotional ImpactChildhood stress seems to cause genetic changes that make the children less able to cope with high levels of stress hormones later in life. Children who are abused early are flooded with stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol, impacting on how the brain develops and the stress regulation method. This in turn impacts on the hippocampus, the area which controls feelings, meaning that adult survivors will be more likely to be

1) highly stressed 2) have difficulties with anger and emotions3) Struggle with violence and aggression

Those who do experience childhood abuse…

2) Emotional Impact continued…1) Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

symptoms are displayed (flashbacks, avoidance, fear, fight or flight, sleep disturbances, etc.)

2) Helplessness3) Impulsivity issues4) be prone to self-harm, anxiety, suicide

and depression

8

Those who do experience childhood abuse…

3) Behavioural Development Impact- Stress can set off a ripple of hormonal

changes that permanently wire a child's brain to cope with a malevolent world (Teicher, 2002).

- Through this chain of events, violence and abuse pass from generation to generation (Teicher, 2002).

Those who do experience childhood abuse…

3) Behavioural Development Impact continued…

• Aggressive, oppositional , erratic, prone to “rages”• Antisocial, delinquent, Inability to trust others,

isolation• Sexual behavior problems (SA), Early sexual

activity, prostitution, promiscuity• School avoidance

Those who do experience childhood abuse…

4) Social Problems• Poor social skills, Socially immature, Inability to

function “normally” in some social settings• Poor social problem-solving • Difficulty understanding complex social roles• Poor boundaries • Withdrawal, Resist affection• Passive, overly dependent

Those who do experience childhood abuse…

4) Social Problems continued…• Longitudinal studies following children who were abused

and neglected as children showed that these traumatic experiences increase the risk for criminal behavior

• Substance Abuse – drinking, drug abuse is common• Re-victimization describes the process whereby women

who were sexually abused as children frequently find themselves in abusive, dangerous situations, or relationships as adults.

• Poverty• Family violence and abuse continued – the cycle of

abuse

13

The impact of trauma on childrenSource: Child Safety Commissioner, 2009, From isolation to connection: a guide to understanding and working with traumatised children and young people, <www.kids.vic.gov>

The effect of trauma on children

Children who experience horrible external events may experience emotional harm or psychic trauma. Left untreated, all but the mildest of childhood trauma can have an impact on the childSource: American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Your Child – Childhood Trauma and Its Effects, <www.aacap.org>

It is important to remember that abuse, neglect and other trauma have different impacts on different children − and that while we have to take seriously the negative impacts of trauma we cannot underestimate the strength of human resilienceSource: Child Safety Commissioner, 2009, From isolation to connection: a guide to understanding and working with traumatised children and young people, <www.kids.vic.gov>.

But What About Resilience?

• “The individual is the product of all of his or her experiences, not early experiences alone.” – Sroufe, Carlston, Levy, & Egeland (1999)

http://www.livescience.com/18453-child-abuse-brain.html

http://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&ved=0CDsQFjAD&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nctsnet.org%2Fnctsn_assets%2Fppt%2Fpowerpoints%2FAbuse_Dev_Impact.ppt&ei=GopiVee7ENKpogSZx4HoBg&usg=AFQjCNGaYTT_fjALh2GQni4P7H1VUUz_9w&bvm=bv.93990622,d.cGU&cad=rja

http://www.asca.org.au/About/Resources/Impact-on-the-physiology-of-the-brain.aspx