The problem of the childhood affecting adult relationship is urgent nowadays. Childhood maltreatment influences not only the self-respect of people as they grow older, but also their intellectual development and health. Communication in this logic chain is related to the physiological stress that undermines a weak organism of a child. Various factors and genes, which are inherited by children from their parents, predetermine their future development.
In the early childhood, such important psychological concepts as basic trust to the world, ability to find contact with people, etc. are founded. Therefore, if to approach the development of a child correctly, one will possibly avoid a vast array of problems, and to found a strong basis for happy and harmonious adult life.
Psychological traumas in childhood play a very important role for the future. Psychological trauma is a jet mental reaction to the events important for a person that is a root of lengthy emotional experiences with that person being affected psychologically. Any significant event for a person can become the reason of a trauma: deception, treachery, disappointment, injustice, violence, death of the loved one, loss experience, any crisis, etc.
The welfare and social status also plays a significant role with its impact on the development of a child. If parents earn enough money, children are likely to obtain decent education, good health and are generally satisfied with their social status. Poverty, on the contrary, causes a continuous physiological stress, lack of working memory progress, as well as poor progress and antisocial behavior in a kindergarten and at school. The foregoing things contribute to a strong tendency of self-criticism when children become adults, which infringes private life and causes disorders.
The given essay will take into consideration the following three sources: the article “Common Love Traps to Avoid” from O, The Oprah Magazine; the article entitled “Childhood Maltreatment Affects Adult Romantic Relationships” from the website eNotAlone; the article entitled “The Relation between Adverse Childhood Experiences and Adult Health: Turning Gold into Lead” from The Permanente Journal 6.1 (Winter 2002): 44-47.
Main Body
“Common Love Traps to Avoid”
The article “Common Love Traps to Avoid” is taken from O, The Oprah Magazine, and is written by Liesl Schillinger. The article was published in the September issue back in 2007.. The author of the article is a famous journalist, translator, and critic. She has worked for the New Yorker Magazine for a decade and now she writes about the relationships between people for O, The Oprah Magazine. This article, taken from the magazine’s section “Relationship”, discusses one couple in crisis who met with the psychologist Jeffrey Young. The expert was able to find the causes of communication difficulties between the spouses in the childhood problems they experienced long time ago. Thus, Jeffrey suggests using cognitive therapy for solving the existing conflict.
Young’s work has a curious parallel with recent developments in the field of interpersonal neurobiology, which suggest that our personal relationships affect the way the mind builds neural pathways. Your emotional memories – of a parent you adored or feared, of a partner you loved or lost – create pathways in the limbic part of the brain (as cited in Schillinger).
“Childhood Maltreatment Affects Adult Romantic Relationships”
The article “Childhood Maltreatment Affects Adult Romantic Relationships” has been uploaded from the website eNotAlone. Its author is Margarita Nahapetyan. The article was published online on May 28, 2012 with its subsequent publication in the Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology. The author of the article Margarita Nahapetyan is famous for her true-to-life articles about life in marriage and relationships between men and women. She is a well-known psychologist and journalist providing necessary and pertinent advice. Nahapetyan is famous for such works as “Virtual Dating and Love”, “Romance at Work: Yes or No?”, etc.
The website this article has been taken from is called eNotAlone. It is regularly updated and consists of the following sections: Dating, Health, Marriage, Money, Parenting, Personal Growth, and Relationship. It was published in the section “Relationship”.
Overall, the article focuses on the urgent issue of the impact of the childhood violence on the future family life. Margarita mentions the studies of two professors Golan Shahar and Dana Lassri, who conducted an extensive research which involved the students with the history of Childhood Emotional Maltreatment (CEM). The author emphasizes that CEM plays a very important role in the future relationship between partners in family. Moreover, she comes to the conclusion that the underestimation of own personality by the violated psychos of young people can lead to the serious problems in romantic relationships.
Childhood Maltreatment includes emotional abuse, neglect, physical maltreatment, and is a significant contributor to the huge increase in referrals to university counseling centers. CM is also associated with self-criticism which has a deleterious effect on romantic relationships (Nahapetyan).
The article is readable and discusses the subject in a comprehensive manner. Moreover, it aims to attract the attention of laymen to the problems related to the impact of the negative experience in childhood on the future romantic relationship and family life.
“The Relation between Adverse Childhood Experiences and Adult Health: Turning Gold into Lead”
The article “The Relation between Adverse Childhood Experiences and Adult Health: Turning Gold into Lead” has been taken from The Permanente Journal 6.1 (Winter 2002): 44-47. Its author is Vincent J Felitti, MD.
The article was published in winter 2002. The author of the article Vincent J Felitti is an internist, who has been engaged in exploring childhood issues for 25 years. Specifically, Felitti has worked in the Department of Preventive Medicine at Kaiser Permanente in San Diego. Vincent J Felitti is an outstanding research officer, famous for the researches in the field of the impact of childhood abuses on the adult life. His most famous studies have been “Adverse Childhood Experiences and Personal Alcohol Abuse as an Adult”. Addictive Behaviors. (In Press), “Growing Up with Parental Alcohol Abuse: Exposure to Childhood Abuse, Neglect and Household Dysfunction”, and “Child Abuse and Neglect”.
Thus, the article discusses the urgent issue of the impact of the childhood abuse on the adult life. The author singles out five main types of children’s maltreatment: physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional maltreatment, neglect, and domestic violence. Moreover, the author of the article singles out the factors of childhood’s abuse which influence the adult life:
The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study is a major research study that compares current adult health status to childhood experiences decades earlier. With the cooperation of 17,421 adult Health Plan members and with the ongoing collaboration of Dr Robert Anda at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the study is being carried out in the Department of Preventive Medicine at Kaiser Permanente (KP) San Diego – where for many years we conducted detailed biomedical, psychological, and social (biopsychosocial) evaluations of more than 50,000 adult Kaiser Foundation Health Plan members per year (Felitti).
The author concludes with the statement that childhood abuses generally lead to serious adverse outcomes in adulthood. Different forms of maltreatment may increase the risk of the severe consequences in adulthood. The article presents scientific evidence and provides a number of clinical examples of childhood maltreatment influence on people’s future lives. Importantly, the author references a range of well-known studies in the field, which makes his work an exemplary secondary research. The target audience includes scientists, researchers, teachers, social workers, clinicians and laymen who are interested in the given topic.
Conclusion
In summary, the analyzed sources provide a wide coverage of the topic of the influence of children’s abuses on the adult life. All described cases may help understand the danger of psychological traumas in childhood for relationships in a family, in a community, and at work. Not all cases may be classified as a result of psychological trauma, though. Some negative experiences or non-constructive ways of behavior, which serve a cause of the address to a psychologist, usually differ from traumas, especially if experienced long ago. Still, any childhood maltreatment should be prevented because psychological traumas are extramental, deep and long-lasting and they imperceptibly influence quality of people’s lives.