CHILDHOOD TRAUMA

PSYCHOTHERAPY

In ancient Greek, the word ‘trauma’ means a physical wound. Psychotherapy is built around the idea that every childhood involves an inevitable degree of emotional wounding. Nothing particularly sinister need have happened for us to have ended up traumatised in ways that harm our chances of finding satisfaction in adult life. Young children are vulnerable around very ordinary things: parents squabble or are distracted; it’s terrifying if they get angry; the child can have intense fears of abandonment and helplessness, even when they are objectively safe. Without being a monster, a parent might be fussily over-protective or highly controlling, rather dismissive or just not very interested. The child’s fragile, immature self can become distorted and damaged by these very normal experiences that occur long before they can be processed or properly understood. In his Outline of Psychoanalysis, Freud defines childhood trauma as ‘an inability to deal with early emotional challenges that a person could endure with utmost ease later on’. In other words, a trauma need not sound particularly bad to our adult selves for it to have had a severe and lasting impact on our development. Maturity means getting to know our traumas before they are able to spoil too much more of our adult lives.

This article is from The School Of Life

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