ABOUT CHILDHOOD TRAUMA RECOVERY

I set up this site eight years ago as a form of self-therapy through better understanding the effects of childhood trauma and strategies that help to treat such effects. It is an educational site.

The majority of individuals who seek psychiatric help as adults have a history of childhood trauma (e.g. Jacobson and Richardson; Briere and Zaidi, 1989; Draijer, 1989). Of course, many of those who suffered damaging and dysfunctional childhoods never come to the attention of psychiatric services and are therefore left to cope with related emotional and behavioural difficulties without professional support (indeed, many individuals who fall into this category may be completely oblivious to the link between their adult problems and their early life experiences.

Those individuals who do seek professional help may present with a wide-ranging and eclectic array of symptoms including depression, insomnia, anxiety (both general and phobic), somatization, paranoia, psychosis, dissociation, problems controlling anger and rage, problems relating to sexuality and sexual function, suicidal ideation, addictions (e.g. to drugs and alcohol) and self-harm (e.g Browne and Finkelhor, 1986; Bryer et al.; Briere, 1988). However, as readers of this website will discover, even such an extensive list as this is far from complete. The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) study, for example, found that, additionally, those the more adverse childhood experiences that an individual had suffered the more likely s/he is, as an adult, to contract liver disease/cancer/heart disease, smoke, perpetrate domestic violence and suffer rape (again, this is an incomplete list of the study’s findings).

There also now exists overwhelming evidence that childhood trauma is linked to borderline personality disorder (BPD) and PTSD/Complex PTSD amongst other disorders.

This site examines the link between childhood trauma and its potentially devastating psychological (and, indeed, physical) consequences in adulthood as well as roots to recovery (i.e. therapies and self-help) and the possibility of posttraumatic growth.

*****

David Hosier MSc holds two degrees (BSc Hons and MSc) and a post-graduate diploma in education (all three qualifications are in psychology). He also holds UK QTS (Qualified Teacher Status). He has worked as a teacher, lecturer and researcher. His own experiences of severe childhood trauma and its emotional fallout motivated him to set up this website, childhoodtraumarecovery.com, for which he exclusively writes articles.

He has published several books including The Link Between Childhood Trauma And Borderline Personality Disorder, The Link Between Childhood Trauma ANd Complex Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and How Childhood Trauma Can Damage The Developing Brain (And How These Effects Can Be Reversed).

He was educated at the University of London, Goldsmith’s College where he developed his interest in childhood experiences leading to psychopathology and wrote his thesis on the effects of childhood depression on academic performance.

This site has been created for educational purposes only.