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The Effects of Early Relational Trauma (2001) [pdf]

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Re: The Effects of Early Relational Trauma (2001) [pdf]

#71

Post by resource_waste »

igorramazanov wrote: post #36

Attachment Theory is an interesting subject on the matter. A few useful books which helped me with both understanding and healing (there're still problems, but it gets better): 1. Love Sense, Sue Johnson. 2. The Power of Attachment, Diane Pooler Heller. 3. Understanding Disorganized Attachment: Theory and Practice for Working with Children and Adults, David, Shemmings and Yvonne Shemmings. 4. The Body Keeps the Score…

I'm a big fan of reading, but I'm not sure I'll be able to go through 7 books before my next crisis.

Surely there is another recommendation/simplification?

Re: The Effects of Early Relational Trauma (2001) [pdf]

#73

Post by throwaway22032 »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #19

In the microplastics thread, so many were ready to assign blame for so many pervasive ills to the prevalence of microplastics. Meanwhile we have known about the devastating effect of interpersonal trauma in childhood and just shrug or worse, say “well that’s how my parents did it and I’m fine.” Foundationally there is no problem more urgent than eliminating interpersonal alienation at every possible interaction and e…

I think you're being a bit unfair with "I'm fine".

Rumination is a real thing and for a lot of people they don't find it useful, or in fact actively harmful, to draw attention to the fact repeatedly.

Re: The Effects of Early Relational Trauma (2001) [pdf]

#74

Post by scoot »

resource_waste wrote: post #71
igorramazanov wrote: post #36

Attachment Theory is an interesting subject on the matter. A few useful books which helped me with both understanding and healing (there're still problems, but it gets better): 1. Love Sense, Sue Johnson. 2. The Power of Attachment, Diane Pooler Heller. 3. Understanding Disorganized Attachment: Theory and Practice for Working with Children and Adults, David, Shemmings and Yvonne Shemmings. 4. The Body Keeps the Score…

I'm a big fan of reading, but I'm not sure I'll be able to go through 7 books before my next crisis. Surely there is another recommendation/simplification?

"Attached" by Dr. Amir Levine and Rachel Heller.

A very approachable work on the subject, exploring the four attachment types (but recognising that they are on a multi-dimensional spectrum), with real-world examples and practical strategies for coping.

Re: The Effects of Early Relational Trauma (2001) [pdf]

#75

Post by smeej »

usgroup wrote: post #72

I’m sorry to read about so much pain experienced by so many. Do the people doing the traumatising typically know they are doing it? Do they typically deny it if confronted?

Speaking for my own abuser, he is the only subject in his entire world. The rest of the universe is full of objects only. He has demonstrated (to clinicians, not just to me) that he has no ability whatsoever to realize that other people are capable of feeling different things than he does, so if something makes him feel good, it makes even the little child he's doing it to feel good too.

He has said on a number of occasions that he (still, in his late 60s) struggles to believe things continue to exist when he can't see them. Even if you're sitting across a table from him and can clearly see behind him, he doesn't believe the things behind him continue to exist, even though you can see them.

I suspect he's on a pretty extreme end of a spectrum there, but that some version of that underlies a lot of trauma. Adults are doing something to meet some need or desire they have, without enough awareness that the (usually young) person in front of them is experiencing it totally differently.

Re: The Effects of Early Relational Trauma (2001) [pdf]

#76

Post by smeej »

ipv6ipv4 wrote: post #33

Often, traumatized individuals traumatize their children. So it’s at least a somewhat self perpetuating phenomenon that may not decay away over generations. As a result, it seems reasonable to assume that different groups could have different prevalences of traumatized individuals. How does the prevalence of traumatized individuals characterize a society as a whole? For example, it seems that a society where the majo…

My mom keeps talking about how much she wants grandchildren. My brother decided the trauma stops with him, so until he's sure he wouldn't repeat any of dad's harmful behaviors, he doesn't want to have kids. I'm only just now getting to a point where I've done enough work that anyone wouldn't be crazy to want to date me, but I'm doing it at an age where biological kids are less and less likely.

So I guess that's one thing that might characterize society: Lots of frustrated would-be grandparents.

Re: The Effects of Early Relational Trauma (2001) [pdf]

#77

Post by smeej »

usefulcat wrote: post #42
lanstin wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the research on child sexual abuse in the US shows that rates have dropped by about 50% since the 1970s. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK201120/ search for "Evidence for a Decline in Physical and Sexual Abuse" (searched for that to post this, and they cite %60 since the 1990s). Freud himself discovered a tremendous amount of horrible abuse in his patients; depending on the culture, most people just turn…

> People that haven't experienced it and recovered from it a bit are really good at not believing how common it is. Also, for people who have experienced it, it's often the last thing they'd ever want to talk about. With anyone, including people they are really close to. There's a good chance you could have a close personal friend or even your partner and never know they had gone through something like that.

I'm really glad to see courageous people changing the trend on this one, though I hope it continues to be an invitation to others to share, not a demand.

These kinds of things fester in darkness and loneliness. I think bringing them out into the light where we can find out we're not alone is helping.

Re: The Effects of Early Relational Trauma (2001) [pdf]

#78

Post by smeej »

taurath wrote: post #61
aleph_minus_one wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another consideration: could it be that with more children, in an abusive household the abuse is typically spreaded out to more children, so that each individual child gets less abuse than in a smaller abusive household?

Every kid hands up having a separate childhood even in the same house, because the caregivers/abusers will change over time. Often one kid tends to take the brunt of the abuse, and the family roles end up reinforcing that.

My brother and I talk a lot about this, how we're only 5 years apart, but the first 5 years of my childhood and the last 5 of his are full of completely different types of abuse, and we weren't really treated the same during the years we were home together. The worst things that happened to me happened before he was old enough to form memories, and his were after I left the house.

Re: The Effects of Early Relational Trauma (2001) [pdf]

#79

Post by smeej »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #21
canjobear wrote: post #4

Are children more traumatized now than in the past? Seems like the past was harder on children.

The past was harder. We generally have more resources and knowledge now. People tend to want to raise the bar when that becomes possible. When kids suffered or died because humans lacked food security, reliable medical treatments etc, it was also generally not really the parent's fault. Knowing you could have been treated better and your parents/the world just didn't actually care about you is scarring in ways that "…

Plus, everyone is in it together when no one has enough. Once you get to "some people could have enough at the expense of other people," victim/perpetrator dynamics show up, but when no one does, you're suffering together.

Abuse of children is isolating for the child victim in a way that suffering hardship as a family unit or community isn't. There's no sense of "I'm as safe as it gets here, at home, with these people (even if that's not very safe)." There is no place of feeling even relative safety, no sense that anyone is even trying to care for or defend you.

Re: The Effects of Early Relational Trauma (2001) [pdf]

#80

Post by Cthulhu_ »

smeej wrote: post #75
usgroup wrote: post #72

I’m sorry to read about so much pain experienced by so many. Do the people doing the traumatising typically know they are doing it? Do they typically deny it if confronted?

Speaking for my own abuser, he is the only subject in his entire world. The rest of the universe is full of objects only. He has demonstrated (to clinicians, not just to me) that he has no ability whatsoever to realize that other people are capable of feeling different things than he does, so if something makes him feel good, it makes even the little child he's doing it to feel good too. He has said on a number of oc…

> I suspect he's on a pretty extreme end of a spectrum there, but that some version of that underlies a lot of trauma.

I'm inclined to agree; one can attach labels to this person of "psychopath", "narcissist", etc, but in a lot of people with that label there isn't a physical problem that they were born with, but events in their lives (often early childhood as per the article) that changed something in their brains for the worst. I don't think they were a lost cause, but they would have needed intensive therapy to try and unfuck some of what they've gone through, and it would only have worked when they were much younger (neuroplasticity etc).

Disclaimer: armchair opinion, I'm not a professional or expert.

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