Early Trauma Can Change a Child’s Brain
Early trauma can change a child’s brain. These brain changes can alter the physical and emotional health of that child across their lifetime. Seriously. And why might readers of BreakingTheCycles.com be interested in this topic? Because trauma – also referred to as Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) – is often at the root of alcohol and other drug use disorders, as well as other mental health disorders. These other mental health disorders include cutting, eating disorders, depression, anxiety, OCD, and PTSD to name a few.
If trauma (aka ACEs) is not treated, then successfully treating and recovering from these substance use and other mental health disorders is just about impossible.
Early Trauma | Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) Explained
Early trauma, aka Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), refers to extremely stressful or traumatic events occurring before age 18. As Jane Stevens, founder of ACEs Connection, (which has been changed to PACEs Connection), explains in her “PACEs Science 101” article,
ACEs are adverse childhood experiences that harm children’s developing brains and lead to changing how they respond to stress and damaging their immune systems so profoundly that the effects show up decades later. ACEs cause much of our burden of chronic disease, most mental illness, and are at the root of most violence.
“ACEs” comes from the CDC-Kaiser Adverse Childhood Experiences Study, a groundbreaking public health study that discovered that childhood trauma leads to the adult onset of chronic diseases, depression and other mental illness, violence and being a victim of violence, as well as financial and social problems. The ACE Study has published about 70 research papers since 1998. Hundreds of additional research papers based on the ACE Study have also been published.
How Is it Early Trauma Can Change a Child’s Brain
At the root of why a person experiencing trauma can suffer physical and emotional health consequences across their lifetime is stress; toxic stress. To help readers understand this connection and learn from that understanding what can be done to change it, I’m sharing the following recent videos.
The first is from the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University. Quoting the description for this 5 minute YouTube video, “How Early Childhood Experiences Affect Lifelong Health and Learning,”
How is ongoing, severe stress and adversity in early childhood connected to chronic disease in adults? And, what can we do about it? In this animated video, narrated by Center on the Developing Child Director Jack P. Shonkoff, M.D., learn what the latest science tells us about how early experiences affect not only early learning and school readiness, but also lifelong health. Understand the effects of adversities such as poverty, discrimination, systemic racism, exposure to violence, and child maltreatment, abuse, and neglect on the developing brain and many other systems in the body. Challenge yourself to think about how we can use policies and resources to address the sources of these problems. And, consider how integrating pediatric primary care with every aspect of the early childhood ecosystem may be an important part of the solution.
And this video is from the UK Trauma Council. Quoting the description for this 5 minute YouTube video, “Childhood Trauma and the Brain,”
A general introduction to what happens in the brain after children face traumatic experiences in childhood, like abuse and neglect.
For Additional Understanding
You may want to read my post for PACEs Connection, “The Developing Brain and Adverse Childhood Experiences.” You may also want to click through the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University’s website section, “A Guide to Toxic Stress.”
What Helps With Treating Trauma
There are many great resources to answer this question. One such resource is HelpGuide.org’s article, “Emotional and Psychological Trauma.” I suggest you read the entire article but wanted to quote this portion to give you a brief explanation to answer this question:
Treatment for trauma
In order to heal from psychological and emotional trauma, you’ll need to resolve the unpleasant feelings and memories you’ve long avoided, discharge pent-up “fight-or-flight” energy, learn to regulate strong emotions, and rebuild your ability to trust other people. A trauma specialist may use a variety of different therapy approaches in your treatment.
Somatic experiencing focuses on bodily sensations, rather than thoughts and memories about the traumatic event. By concentrating on what’s happening in your body, you can release pent-up trauma-related energy through shaking, crying, and other forms of physical release.
Cognitive-behavioral therapy helps you process and evaluate your thoughts and feelings about a trauma.
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) incorporates elements of cognitive-behavioral therapy with eye movements or other forms of rhythmic, left-right stimulation that can “unfreeze” traumatic memories. Source: HelpGuide.org, “Emotional and Psychological Trauma.”
You’ll find a great deal of information and helpful resources on their site, HelpGuide.org. Another great resource is to scroll through the navigation tabs on GoodTherapy.org.
Lisa Frederiksen
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Would suicide of an older sibling around age 4 be considered traumatic enough to trigger alcoholism, and can this be treated 30+ years later?
Absolutely! I’d be happy to explain this to you via a phone call (no charge). I do it this way as generally each answers prompts more questions. Send me an email to lisaf@BreakingTheCycles.com, and we can schedule it.