Child Complex Trauma & Good Outcomes Blog Series by Dr. Jane Gilgun

Children who experience trauma often are subject to complex trauma, which is a series of difficult life events that interfere with attachment relationships and that threaten healthy development in a range of domains, including emotional, cognitive, sexual, social, and physical1. Children learn to cope with, adapt to, and overcome the effects of trauma in the safety of secure relationships.

The purpose of this blog series is to describe complex trauma, to show the importance of secure relationships, and to show factors associated with good social service outcomes when children have experienced complex trauma. Case materials bring the issues to life.

Complex Trauma

Child trauma has many definitions but the core issue involves adverse life events that overwhelm capacities for coping and that result in impairment to development and functioning in a variety of areas, such as emotional development, executive function, and self-regulation1. Complex trauma is composed of a series of these adversities that often are linked. For instance, when children witness their fathers physically and emotionally abusing their mothers, they also may experience consequences of the abuse such as emotional unavailability and preoccupation of parents, police calls to the home, absence of parents, economic hardship, and homelessness.

For children, the effects of trauma may be more formative than for persons who are older because children are in relatively early stages of development. Children maintain or resume optimal functioning and development when they have secure relationships where they feel safe and where they trust attachment figures to the point where they can deal directly with the effects of trauma. In many cases, the children and their families require professional services to work through the effects of trauma.

Trauma, the Brain, and Dysregulation

Traumatic responses are expectable to extraordinary, overwhelming events. The experiences of these events are stored in the brain, often as fragmented memories. These fragments are like “hot button” or triggers. When children perceive reminders of the traumas, the hot buttons go off and children re-experience the original traumas. Children appear to be particularly vulnerable to reactivation of traumas when they experience stress, such as being mocked, teased, or physically assaulted. Under stress, children are on the alert, ready to react when reminders of the original traumas are present. Reminders can involve any of the five senses, such as smell, taste, touch, sound, or color. An example is a nine-month old child who screams when he sees a woman with blonde hair because a social worker with blonde hair took him from his biological family into foster care.

When hot buttons are triggered, children are at risk to dysregulate; that is, to respond in disorganized ways. They may shut down, become hyperactive, or do things that harm self, others, animals, and property.

How children respond to experiences of complex trauma depends upon the meanings they give not only to the traumas but to the entirety of their previous experiences and present circumstances. Children require the safety of secure relationships to cope with the effects of trauma. They are unequipped to understand traumatic events without the help of adults. They simply do not have the cognitive structures, emotional development, education, and experience to do so. If they have previous untreated trauma, they are set up to respond in disorganized ways to new traumas.

Questions To Consider

Please feel free to leave a comment below with your input on the questions posed here.

  • How does this information on complex trauma resonate with you as a child welfare professional?
  • What policies and practices do you know of that address complex trauma in child welfare?

Next Week

Next week’s post will cover a child’s capacity for coping and the negative impact that insecure relationships can have on coping.

Sources

  1. Van der Kolk, B. A. (2005). Developmental trauma disorder: A new, rational diagnosis for children with complex trauma histories. Psychiatric Annals, 35(5), 390-398.
  2. Lieberman, A. F. (2007). Ghosts and angels: Intergenerational patterns in the
    transmission and treatment of the traumatic sequelae of domestic violence. Infant Mental Health Journal, 28(3), 422-439; Lieberman, A. F. (2004). Traumatic stress and quality of attachment: Reality and internalization in disorders of infant mental health. Infant Mental Health Journal, 25(4), 336-351; Van der Kolk, B. A. (2005). Developmental trauma disorder: A new, rational diagnosis for children with complex trauma histories. Psychiatric Annals, 35(5), 390-398.