Debbie Parker

What Exactly Is Trauma

The effects of abuse and neglect: With the trauma-informed care movement, we have all heard that early childhood abuse and neglect impact brain development. Even exclusively psychological abuse has enduring negative effects on brain development. Physical, sexual, and psychological trauma in childhood may lead to psychiatric difficulties that show up in childhood, adolescence, or adulthood. The victim’s anger, shame, and despair can be directed inward to spawn symptoms such as depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, and post-traumatic stress, or directed outward as aggression, impulsiveness, delinquency, hyperactivity, and substance abuse.