Developmental Trauma: The Game Changer in the Mental Health Profession

Description

Developmental trauma has become a controversial topic in the mental health profession, contributing to a growing rift between clinicians and academicians. The controversy centers on how relational trauma impacts children during the first three years of life.

What Is Developmental Trauma?

Developmental trauma refers to childhood relational trauma involving abuse, neglect or abandonment by parents and other adult caregivers.  Clinicians say that developmental trauma has deep and long-lasting effect on child development that contributes to illnesses and degenerative diseases in adulthood. Clinicians base their opinion on their work “in the trenches,” where they see a steady stream of clients whose problems clearly stem from early relational trauma. Their experiences as clinicians, particularly those working with young children, say that developmental trauma is a real source of human suffering.

Academicians, researchers and some psychiatrists say that the impact of this early relational trauma is negligible, and only a part of the diagnostic and treatment picture. This group is not actively involved in developing empathic relationships with clients, so they are somewhat removed from the suffering caused by adverse childhood experiences.

This book examines the historical factors that have caused this professional controversy, and how it is provoking a game-change in the way that mental health professionals conduct their practices.

Why Is Developmental Trauma A Game-Changer?

This book also examines the personal impact of developmental trauma, and how it can become a life game-changer. Rather being a self-fulfilling prophesy for pain and suffering, developmental trauma can become a catalyst for personal transformation and meaning-making.

Recent research indicates that one’s beliefs about stress, not stress itself, determines whether it is positive or negative. This book helps readers change their beliefs about stress, and reframe the concept of developmental trauma into developmental growth. This perspective empowers readers towards intrapsychic integration and personal transformation.

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