What is childhood trauma?
Hi I’m Sarah and I’m a Manchester based psychotherapist, working privately online via Zoom.
Today we’re going to cover:
The different types of abuse; definitions for emotional, physical and sexual abuse
Definition of non contact sexual abuse
The different types of neglect; definitions for physical and emotional neglect
Childhood emotional neglect (CEN)
Barriers to recognising childhood trauma
The definition of misattunement
Before we start, please be aware that you might find some of the below triggering or upsetting. You do not have to keep reading and may take breaks or decide not to continue at any point. If you have someone to talk to, you might wish to tell them about what you’ve been reading. Some people may find it hard to concentrate or drift off (dissociate) when they read information that relates to their childhood traumas.
The below is intended to help you to understand whether your experiences meet the definition of abuse or neglect. There may be other factors that have affected you that are not covered here. A parent with drug addictions, who is in prison, lack of financial means to support the family, economic instability, natural disasters, wars, political unrest, racism, bullying, being misgendered, denial of your gender or sexual identity can all have long lasting effects in adulthood. This is not intended to be an exhaustive list, rather to provide a guide to some common terms that you may have seen or read.
The difference between abuse and neglect
Abuse is something that happened to you whereas neglect is something that didn’t happen or that you were deprived of. There are several different types of abuse, the main types are emotional, physical and sexual.
What is physical abuse?
People seem to understand physical and sexual abuse a little better than emotional abuse. Physical abuse can include hitting of any description (including smacking or spanking - these are simply different words for hitting children): punching, slapping, grabbing, pushing, pinching, kicking using belts, canes, spoons, shoes or other objects to inflict damage, burning, biting, shaking, holding under water, force feeding, washing a child’s mouth out with soap, or forcing them to ingest hot sauce or other intolerable substances or drugging.
What is sexual abuse?
All sexual touch towards children is abusive. There is no reason for a parent, adult or child to touch a child in a sexual way.
In addition to what people understand as sexual abuse, there is also non contact sexual abuse, which can be exposing or forcing a child to view sexual images, acts or pornography, to engage in sexual acts with others or to take an intrusive approach to a child’s sexual development or relationships. You will also sometimes see this referred to as covert incest, emotional incest or covert sexual abuse.
What is covert sexual abuse (emotional incest)?
This can include asking inappropriate questions about the child’s body, sexual development, masturbation or a particular interest in what they are wearing, including underwear or excuses to touch the child when naked or have the child touch them when naked which are hard to pin down as sexually explicit. Often the result is that the child feels abused, confused and has no ‘proof’ to take to others of what has happened. Importance should be placed on how the child feels or felt, as this is normally a good indication that something was not ok.
Emotional incest (covert incest)
This may also refer to when a child is treated like the parent’s partner. This can be by relying them on too much for emotional support or when the child feels responsibility for the parent. This can happen when the other parent is absent (either physically or emotionally), has died, is sick or works away. Equally it can happen in dysfunctional families when both parents are physically present. It is never the fault of the child, and always the responsibility of the adult to protect the child.
What is emotional abuse?
Emotional abuse, is in my opinion, the biggest factor for people seeking therapy for childhood trauma. It has a great impact, but it often the least recognised in types of abuse. People can remember very clearly, often decades later, the humiliation and pain they felt and this can cause many problems as an adult survivor.
Emotional abuse includes shouting, belittling, criticising, humiliating, insults, ‘jokes’ (that are not funny to anyone but the abuser and cause profound pain to the child) or gaslighting which is where you are told you are confused, misremembered the situation or that it didn’t happen. Abusive parents frequently question the reality of their children (and this continues far into adulthood) leaving the child feeling quite mad. They may be told they are delusional, insane, make things up or are a liar, all this in an attempt to convince the child that the abuse did not happen.
What is physical neglect in children?
I think this is what people think of the most when they picture a ‘bad childhood’ or think of child abuse. These children do not have sufficient food, a safe place to live, clothes that fit them (and are in good repair and suitable for their environment), heating and may not be taken to the dentist or the doctor for checkups, vaccinations and when they are sick or in pain. They might not be kept clean or be taken to school or have the necessary resources to complete their education. You may have experienced one or many of these examples.
Emotional Neglect or CEN
This is also known as Childhood Emotional Neglect. As a UK based psychotherapist, I see CEN used far more frequently in the US, which might explain why you have not heard of it.
Emotional neglect happens when the parent or parents are unable to respond to their children’s emotional needs. Unfortunately I often hear that parents should ‘trust their intuition’ when it comes to parenting and I think this is disastrous advice. Nobody suggests that the pilot land the plane on intuition, but yet we expect parents to have the awareness to understand their own upbringing, evaluate its effectiveness whilst simultaneously managing their own triggers and introducing new child rearing strategies. Many parents cannot do this and simply copy how they were parented. Thus the intergenerational trauma continues until someone decides enough is enough.
Was my childhood abusive or neglectful?
In my experience, clients frequently underestimate the impact that their childhood has had on them. This runs counter to the idea that people ‘blame everything on their parents’. They really don’t. It’s far more common that I get someone who says ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with me’, ‘I’m such a problem’ or ‘I’m a terrible person’. These phrases can be symptoms of childhood abuse in adults and an early indication of childhood trauma to trauma therapists and those working with emotional or relational trauma.
I’m not sure if my family was abusive
Children in dysfunctional families are brainwashed to believe that the family is not dysfunctional. This may or may not be completely successful. Sometimes the child feels as if they inhabit two different worlds; the one of their family of origin and the one where they want something different. This confusion and cognitive dissonance can itself lead to dissociation and feeling insane.
My family say they weren’t abusive
In order to continue unchallenged, dysfunctional families really need everyone to be singing from the same hymn sheet. This makes it very difficult when one person tries to ‘speak the truth’. This person is often treated as a scapegoat and is the first (and frequently only) person to end up in therapy. The scapegoated person is often labelled as ‘mad’, ‘unreliable’ or ‘inconsistent’ and may be ignored, ostracised or eventually cut out completely if they cannot find their way back to the family rules (with the underlying context that they must ‘stop complaining' and ‘telling ‘lies’).
I don’t know if I had childhood trauma
I’ve worked with many people who experienced clear examples of multiple types of abuse who didn’t realise they had childhood trauma. This attempt to protect the family of origin can be counter productive, since every story needs a villain and when it’s not the family it becomes the victim. It can take a while for people to see their reality and they may still experience what I’d call ‘flashback amnesia’ periodically which is when they are triggered by a situation and forget what they have learned in therapy and their new programming disappears until the flashback recedes.
Why do people protect their abusive family?
Other reasons for protecting the family involve loyalty, real or perceived threats of being disowned, cut off financially, physically or emotionally attacked or not wanting to bring ‘dishonour’ to the family. Many religions including Christianity and Islam and many cultures place particular importance on honouring one’s parents or the importance of family. This can be particularly confusing for the child who did not feel safe at home.
What is misattunement?
Misattunement is a term used in psychotherapy theory but it can be helpful for clients to understand as I think it can cover an area not covered in other terms. It’s often a mixture of emotional abuse and emotional neglect but it is can also be unintentional. It can be caused by parents who are unable to provide emotional support to their children or meet their emotional needs.
This might be because they’re preoccupied, they are overworked, caring for elderly parents or struggling with their own mental health.
It can also occur when there is a strong mismatch between the parent’s personality and the child’s or when the parent does not have the skills to emotionally care for the child. It can occur when parents attempt to parent the child they imagined and not the child they have.
Children whose parents were misattuned to their needs can feel forgotten, unimportant or like ‘nobody truly gets them’. They may feel confused about their struggles believing that ‘they had everything they needed’ whilst feeling unloved and misunderstood.
Is one type of trauma worse than another?
People often tie themselves in knots explaining to me why their trauma is not as bad as someone else’s. Of course, they dismiss their own traumas, which is learned in the family of origin.
There is no ‘trauma Olympics’ and you don’t need to prove to me how much you have suffered. I’m not here to judge your traumas, but rather to listen and to support you to understand what happened to you.
To book an appointment to find out how I can help, contact me today.