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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]

#81

Post by Cthulhu_ »

m463 wrote: post #43
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…

> not believing how common it is. I knew someone that was abused as a child. Had trouble with drugs and went into rehab. He said that ALL the people he met in rehab had been abused.

It really is a silent crisis and difficult to get a hold on the scale of it. To the point where it feels like everyone has some kind of trauma, but that might just be the circles I'm in.

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

#82

Post by Cthulhu_ »

aleph_minus_one wrote: post #30
spamizbad wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One factor might be family size. Purely anecdotal, but I have a friend who grew up in an extremely abusive household and said directly to me that the only reason he thinks he survived his situation was because he had 4 other siblings and they all supported each other during the difficult times.

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?

Anecdotal, but I think it's that one of the children gets the brunt of it and the others adjust. In my case, my elder brother had it the roughest, also since my parents were young and it was their first; I "compensated" for his more rebellious behaviour by not doing all the things he did "wrong". There's also something at my ex partner's case but I can't speak for her, but I can say that even though she got it worst, all her siblings ended up messed up in some way.

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

#83

Post by reflexco »

MrDresden wrote: post #58
ramity wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

#4 was a profound and very validating read for me understanding how the brain handles traumatic events. Thanks for sharing.

Not to deny your experience with it, however looking up the author and the book I notice that it has drawn some serious criticisms for inaccuracies and lack of empirical data backing up claims.

> lack of empirical data backing up claims

Doesn't that describe almost all books on psychology?

Psychology studies tend to be so hilariously unscientific that I'd rather get the coherent opinions and gut feelings of an experienced practicing expert, rather than half-arsed studies.

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

#84

Post by biorach »

MrDresden wrote: post #58
ramity wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

#4 was a profound and very validating read for me understanding how the brain handles traumatic events. Thanks for sharing.

Not to deny your experience with it, however looking up the author and the book I notice that it has drawn some serious criticisms for inaccuracies and lack of empirical data backing up claims.

Links? He cites a _lot_ of empirical research and the book is generally highly regarded in the field

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

#85

Post by NateEag »

smeej wrote: post #76
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 t…

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

Perhaps also many alienated grandparents, confused, hurt, and angry that their children don't want them involved in their grandchildren's lives.

https://www.webmd.com/parenting/news/20230620/dealing-with-a...

https://www.alienatedgrandparentsanonymous.com/

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

#86

Post by cassepipe »

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…

Scott Alexander's review of The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk : https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/11/12/book-review-the-body-k...

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

#87

Post by sleno »

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…

Could you summarize some practical takeaways from all these books? To be honest I've become a bit skeptical of how much this sort of stuff helps. From what I see, our society has become much more well-versed in all this psychology-therapy-trauma material in the last 20 years, yet despite this we're taking more anti-depressants and seeing more therapy than ever. Mentally and spiritually we seem to be doing worse than ever before, especially kids.

Somehow, humans managed to get by for thousands of years without any of this stuff. I can honestly say the people I know who are more knowledgeable in all this psychology-trauma material seem to be the least well adjusted. Conversely, my more religious friends (Catholic, Muslim) seem happier and more resilient psychologically. Maybe it's just correlation. Maybe if we didn't have all this academic literature on trauma becoming mainstream people would be doing even worse. But it also seems possible that over-analyzing and over-pathologizing 'trauma' can have exactly the opposite effect we hope it to have.

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

#88

Post by igorramazanov »

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?

If I'd have to pick only one book, then it'd be the second one.

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

#89

Post by igorramazanov »

agumonkey wrote: post #59
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…

Are these talking about the neurological basis of attachment ? Thanks for the list nonetheless.

Yes, except the "Focusing" practice and the last one about the violence.

Attachment is a weird thing, because it usually happens so early in life where there are no memories yet.

However, infants still internalize everything, they can feel, react to the environment and understand consequences of what their feelings tell them. "If I'm scared, then there's a high probability of something bad to be happen to me".

So, there are may not be rational memories to be linked to the problem 20-30 years later in life.

P.S.

Speaking from the personal experience - during the focusing practice I was able to verbally conceptualize these old feelings which became a part of my identity.

In the end, the crux was being an infant, a sensation of being blind, overfocused on touch and sounds, high sensation of exposedness and nakedness, sensation of mother's touch and realisation that she's unable to attune to me emotionally, like it's still a human touch, but similar to touching a stone.

Hence, the futile cry and scream to draw her attention out of fear to be protected.

To paraphraze, it felt like if now, I'd get tied (immobilized), blindfolded and left naked in the night Luisiana swamps.

It's weird, but I think, I actually understood why infants may cry and have a need to be seen and connected to. It seems to be so logical for me nowadays - they are humans too, after all.

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

#90

Post by throwup238 »

m463 wrote: post #43
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…

> not believing how common it is. I knew someone that was abused as a child. Had trouble with drugs and went into rehab. He said that ALL the people he met in rehab had been abused.

A friend who is counselor and head priest at a girls’ Catholic school thinks it’s a large factor behind the childhood obesity epidemic too. Not just sexual abuse but childhood trauma in general leading to food as a coping mechanism.

His offhand theory is that the increase in the prevalence of restaurants and hyperpalatable foods gave people an outlet to feel safe (a third place in public where the whole family goes and acts their best) and the hyperpalatable food gave an easy and cheap dopamine boost during hard times leading to a spiral.

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