Impact Of Trauma

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Developmental Impact of Trauma Exploration of the Impact of Developmental Trauma A silent epidemic in America is the all too common childhood exposure to interpersonal traumatic stressors (D’Andrea, Ford, Stolbach, Spinazzola, & van der Kolk, 2012). Approximately 6.6 million children were reported to Child Protective Services (CPS) in 2014 with alleged abuse or neglect (ACF, 2014). Parents are the culprit of eighty percent of all children who endure maltreatment (van der Kolk, 2005). According to Fratto (2016), maltreatment is abuse and/ or neglect by a parent or caregiver. Children who have been exposed to emotional and physical abuse, neglect, sexual abuse, or witness to war can affect the development of a secure attachment between the child and caregiver (Cook et al., 2005). Evidence shows children …show more content…

Trauma is often seen as an event; however, trauma is actually the impact on a client’s life as a result of an experience (Saunders, 2016.) There are many factors that determine the effect the trauma will have on a person to include: developmental processes, the meaning associated to the trauma, and sociocultural factors (SAMHSA, 2014). Traumatic experiences can cause a person to have an unintegrated state of sensations, feelings, thoughts, behavior, and/ or images so strong they interfere with the person’s normal functioning. This state causes the person not to be able to access memories, sensations or somatic responses necessary to overcome events that are overwhelming, and can be developmentally intrusive (Saunders, 2016). In posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), unintegrated feelings, sensations, and images can become triggered, and the brain reacts with the same feelings of being overwhelmed. These reactions of PTSD are a result of unintegrated memories about a single

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