Childhood Trauma: What Contribution Does It Make To Interpersonal Relationships in Adulthood?

Google Images, n.d

“The National Incidence Study W reported that an estimated 323,000 children were physically abused and 135,000 children were sexually abused between 2005 and 2006” (Larsen, Sandberg, Harper, et.al, 2011)

What is Trauma?

• An emotional and behavioral problem caused due to a horrible event such as an accident, rape, natural disaster or wars/terrors.
• Cause difficulty to move forward with their current lives

How does childhood trauma affects adulthood?

Trauma creates huge impacts on children’s development:

• Disrupts attachment
• Disrupts brain and cognitive development
• Inability to learn and develop social skills with others

Prevent Child Abuse Illinois. (n.d.). Adverse Childhood experiences [image]. http://www.preventchildabuseillinois.org/childhood-trauma

In America, a 2nd-grade student named Michael, who experienced a traumatic event of his mother being hit in the arm by a bullet while walking down the street together (Terrasi and Galarce, 2017). His behavior and emotional stability completely changed before and after the incident:

Before incident:

• happy to attend school
• good interactions with peers and teachers
• no problem with schoolwork

After incident:

• frequently agitated
• hiding under desk, knocking things down, hitting others, running out of the classroom
• behavior became unmanageable at home- too much attachment to mother

Children’s exposure and risk to abuse (ex. psychological, physiological, sexual) or negative family environment (ex. chronic mental illness, domestic violence, substance abuse and criminal behavior) (Terrasi and Galarce, 2017). This made a prediction of higher rates of smoking, obesity, depression, suicide, alcoholism and other substance abuse, and sexuality transmitted diseases.

How will these problems affect their social relationship with others throughout their life?

Complex trauma

• “Cumulative effect of traumatic experiences that are repeated/prolonged over time” (Terrasi and Galarce, 2017).
• Occurs within the child’s social network
• Often occurs during development period when children are learning to control emotions/during early adolescence, when interpersonal skills and problem solving abilities are usually taken off
• Common source

1. Physical, sexual/emotional distress or abuse
2. Being witness to repeated acts of domestic violence
3. Experience severe poverty, hardship/homelessness

Trauma and learning

• Trauma leads to adverse effects of stress which hinder physical, social and emotional development
• Children are unable to trust environments and the people included which they tend to have hard time bonding relationships, define verbal and nonverbal cues and comprehending others’ perspectives

Nowadays, in our society, more and more children are getting involved in traumatic events, especially physically and sexually. I believe the main cause of this serious issue in our society would be poor/negative family environment, domestic violence, and other marital conflicts or single parenting.

Factors that contribute to child abuse (Kail, 2016, p. 456)

• Cultural and community contributions

→ cultures that proceed physical punishment (ex. spanking is common in Asian cultures)

→ family poverty as the stress correlated with inadequate income.

→ socially isolated families due to parents’ lack of social support

• Parents’ contribution (abuse their own children)

→ were often abused when they were a child as well

→ have poor parenting skills (ex. unrealistic expectations, inappropriate punishments)

• Children’s contributions

→ young children- they can’t control their own behavior

→ ill children- their behavior while ill becomes indifferent

→ stepchildren- stepparents invest less into their stepchildren

Physical abuse and the psychosocial consequences in adulthood.

• Physical illness
• Depression
• Anger
• Higher level of anxiety

Sexual abuse and the psychosocial consequences in adulthood

• Experience difficulty building healthy relationships
• Blame themselves for the abuse which makes difficult terms with psychological, emotional and social consequences
• Led to an inability to trust people, isolate from others and obstacle of forming safe attachments

However, when children are exposed to both abuses:

• Higher levels of psychological distress
• Struggle creating secure attachments
• More likely to self-blame and self-isolation. This inhibits the development of romantic attachment in serious relationships, which therefore, contributes to poor relationship quality (Larsen, Sandberg, Harper, et.al, 2011).
• Disorganized patterns of attachment lead to inability to regulate emotions (Larsen, Sandberg, Harper, et.al, 2011).

Now, let’s look at how each of the consequences mentioned above deteriorate interpersonal relationship in adulthood.

Poor skill development

• Victims are hindered to develop social and emotional skills (Larsen, Sandberg, Harper, et.al, 2011).
• Show broken patterns of relating to others
• Adults who experienced childhood sexual abuse, are experiencing poor development skills which obstructs them to have a healthy, satisfying romantic relationship.

Attachment issues

• Children perceive themselves in relation to their caregivers and believe that they are worthy they are to receive love and care (Larsen, Sandberg, Harper, et.al, 2011).
• Children who experienced physical abuse conceive a dysfunctional perspective of themselves and unable to accept love in healthy ways because they think they aren’t worthy enough.
• As children experience high level of abuse, they believe that people aren’t safe, predictable, or trustworthy, thus, creating attachment is a big risk for them to take (Larsen, Sandberg, Harper, et.al, 2011).
• Children who experienced both physical and sexual abuses, are more likely to be involved with partners who maltreat them or have a poor relationship in which they have destructive social and emotional abilities, attachment issues, and poor boundaries. Therefore, their relationship quality will be poorer.

Influence of shame

• Childhood abuse increases amounts of shame; shame is a social emotion that develops in relation to others when a piece of one’s self is exposed that one wants to keep hidden (Larsen, Sandberg, Harper, et.al, 2011).
• As level of shame elevates, the amount of interpersonal problem increases
• Shame may lead to psychological distress and behavioral problems which brings a negative impact on children’s future intimate relationship between their partners
• High level of shame makes the child feel unneeded and unsuitable for love or regard which they may create self-isolation from others getting to close to them.

Overall, as far as we know, we learned that high frequency of physical and sexual abuse, or both, in childhood may contribute to decreased adult relationship quality. Adults who experienced childhood emotional abuse has higher impact on interpersonal problems (Huh, Kim, Yu and et.al, 2014).

Therefore, children may observe their environment as a threat and think that all people and objects they perceive are a potential threat to their safety which makes it more uneasy and feel anxiety for them to interact with others. This explains that childhood trauma makes different contributions to interpersonal relationships in adulthood.

References:

Huh, H.J., Kim, S., Yu, J.J., & Chae. J.H. (2014). Childhood trauma and adult interpersonal relationship problems in patients with depression and anxiety disorders. Ann Gen Psychiatry 13, (26). Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1186/s12991-014-0026-y

Kail, R.V. (2016). Children and Their Development. (7th edition). Essex, England; Pearson Global Edition

Larsen, C., Sandberg, J., Harper, J., & Bean, R. (2011). The Effects of Childhood Abuse on Relationship Quality: Gender Differences and Clinical Implications. Family Relations, 60(4), 435–445. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/41236779

Terrasi, S., & De Galarce, P. (2017). Trauma and learning in America’s classrooms. The Phi Delta Kappan, 98(6), 35–41. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/26386969