The stressful life events that impact early in the life of the individual have an undisputed weight in future psychological development. This is such that it can significantly compete in the development of Psychopathological symptoms during the course of existence.
Obviously an event, in order to have a significant role in the etiopathogenesis of a mental disorder, must have very specific characteristics. It must have a high negative emotional impact and be chronic or repeated over time, such as to generate responses of persistent distress in the child.
Among the events with high emotional impact in childhood we find: abuse, mistreatment, neglect and other destabilizing events against the attachment figures (divorce or death of a parent, mental diseases of the Caregiovers, etc.).
The role of neglect and the impact on emotional development
In 1953 Donald Winnicott, British pediatrician and psychoanalyst, first introduced the concept of “sufficiently good mother” to describe the caregiver’s ability (especially the mother, in her first formulation) to connect emotionally with her son as a positive predictive factor of a good mental development of the child.
Winnicott was the first to hypothesize a link between Experiences of mother-child emotional connection and the mental health of the individual during his life.
Winnicott’s theory was based on the concept that the person does not need a “perfect” mother but of a mother capable of grasping the signals of the child’s emotional needs and responding to you consistently. This in order to be defined “Good enough” (“Good East”).
The neglect
When we talk about the early experience of neglect, we refer to a chronic lack of emotional recognition by parents or one of them.
There neglect for emotional needs It translates into constant behaviors of disinterest towards the emotional sphere of the child, lack of connection with the experiences of the son and poor validation of his feelings.
Often parents neglecting emotional level are not aware of their lack or minimizing their impact on their child. They are often people who tend to have carelessness towards feelings in general, even their own ones.
They can be adequate parents in satisfying other needs of children: maybe they treat their clothing and nutrition or can follow them in the study but avoid the contact with their internal world. That is, they lack an open communication of their emotions and do not interest the experiences of children or how they are managed. Furthermore, they often do not give importance to what children can hurt or disturb them.
This attitude, when manifesting itself chronicly by the caregiver, can translate into learning a dysfunctional attitude. First in the child and then also in the adult we will find poor attention and poor awareness of one’s emotional states and tendency to self-invalidate one’s feelings or neglect one’s needs.
These elements can go to constitute fertile soil for the development of problems of the emotional and psychological sphere, of different nature.
Consequences of early events on personality traits
As we said, there is a amount of data to support the link between negative life events (such as neglect) and development of psychological disorders.
In particular, chronic adversities lived in adolescence seem to correlate with dysfunctional traits of adulthood.
In fact, a growing number of studies has shown that adult personological functioning is significantly damaged in subjects who have experienced repeated painful experiences in childhood (Hughes et al., 2017). Among the latter there are:
- Neglect, already described above.
- Physical, sexual or emotional abuses.
- Early divorce or separation of parents.
- Imprisonment of a parent.
- Psychiatric disorders in a parent.
- Domestic violence.
The subject exposed to these childhood experiences could develop Excessively rigid or dysfunctional traits of personality Both for direct learning and as protection from pain experienced in childhood.
In the first case, a person could grow with little empathy precisely because he received a severe education and neglecting feelings.
In the second case, the individual could – for example – develop a tendency to aggressiveness and a poor regulation of anger in response to experiences of physical victimization suffered. This precisely because having threatening behavior reduces the feeling of internalized impotence during Experiences of abuse immediately.
Pathological personality and early stressful events
In this setting, some authors investigated the association between pathological personality and early stressful events (eg, Carver et al., 2014; Rosenman & Rodgers, 2006). In particular, the following strokes are connected with previous Experiences with high emotional impact in childish age:
- Chronically negative childhood experiences can prepare for a tendency to experience frequently or chronically negative and intense emotional reactions (anxiety, despair, anger or shame are emotions commonly experienced by these subjects with a marked difficulty in self-regulating). In fact, it is understandable that a person who has experienced highly impactful events has been exposed to emotionally overwhelming negative emotions at an early age, without any possibility of having a relief or learning to manage them.
- Aggression. In connection to neuroticism, early negative events predispose the person to behaviors of hostility and aggression: these subjects can also manifest impulsiveness and discontrulus, as a reaction to learning or as a protective mechanism towards experiences of abuse suffered.
- Poor collaboration capacity. Individuals who have suffered mistreatment or neglect from children present difficulties in cooperation with others, tend to withdraw or the progress of interactions because they are prone to irritability and not very capable of tolerating different points of view in the other.
- Focus on external successes. Early negative life experiences can lead to developing a tendency to have pretense behavior or arrogance towards others, probably in response to a deep sense of inadequacy internalized over time. These aspects are accompanied by an excessive focus on fame and success with the constant expectation of being recognized as special or worthy of admiration, aspects associated with forms of negation of the pains of the past.
- Low level of relational commitment. Parallel to the high focus on external successes and power, these subjects have a low willingness to engage in intimate sentimental bonds. The tendency, on a social and sentimental level, is that of independence and detachment from others, precisely in response to experiences of painful attachment.
Speaking of association between negative events in childhood and aspects of personality, we are not assuming that these traits are a certain consequence or unchangeable.
Although some authors (e.g., Roseman and Rodgers, 2006) say that the consequences of adversities in childhood tend to predominate throughout the arc of life, this does not mean that they constitute a certain and inelurable destiny for those who have experienced repeated early impact events.
Early signs of psychological suffering in adolescence: is it possible to intervene early?
On the international scene, growing attention is emerging towards the prevention of mental health; In particular with screening projects in adolescence (Moran, M., 2022; Stiffman and colleagues, 2010).
This approach has not yet become part of the policies of European countries while taking field in the United States with promising results.
The assumption is that subjects who, for biological or social factors (life events described) can be predisposed to develop psychopathological aspects in adulthood, could be intercepted by identifying early signs of psychological suffering in adolescence.
Limits and difficulties
The limits to prevention projects like these are however numerous. First of all, the only medical figures who certainly come into contact with children or young teenagers are pediatricians who have limited spaces and times to be able to grasp, in addition to physical symptoms, also signs of psychological distress in the patient or through parents.
Finally, there is no adequate information on the role that the aforementioned life events can play on the psychological balance of a child or a boy and this contributes to a general attitude of poor attention and awareness of youth psychological health.
Finally, even when the young boys come to the clinical attention of a mental health professional, there are always support protocols for youth discomfort in cases where there are no extremes for a real diagnosis.
Mental health professionals, on the other hand, should be formed to be able to work on pre-Morboso aspects to try to deviate the future trajectory of psychopathology. On the contrary, although technological developments have allowed a greater usability of psychotherapy also to young people (for example through interviews on online platforms), short and effective specific psychological intervention programs are still missing for this user target.
The consequences of the non -early intervention
These barriers to early psychological screening in childhood constitute a real health emergency.
In fact, almost half of the mental disorders in adulthood they have signals of debut previous to 14 years; In addition, childhood and adulthood disorders seem to be exponentially increased after pandemic.
As reported by international studies (IE Jama Pediatrics), it currently seems that a temporal gap of about 11 years exists between the first symptoms and the actual diagnosis; This is due to obstacles to a correct identification of the childhood signals of psychological suffering.
This means that a 6 -year -old boy may not be taken in charge before 17 with the consequent prolonged suffering by the young individual and above all the impossibility of modifying psychopathological trajectories that could crystallize in real disorders or traits of pathological personality in adulthood.
Bibliography
- Carver, CS, Johnson, SL, McCulloough, Me, Forster, De, & Joomann, J. (2014). AdultHood Personality Related of Childhood Adversity. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, 1357.
- Hughes, K., Bellis, but, Hardcastle, Ka, Sethi, D., Butchart, A., Mikton, C., … & Dunne, MP (2017). The Effect of Multiple Adverse Childhood Experiences On Health: A Systematic Review and Meta-Aalysis. The Lancet Public Health, 2, E356-E366.
- Moran, M. (2022). “What Does a Public Health Landing To Mental Health and Illness Look like?” Psychiatric News. American Psychiatric Association.
- Rosenman, S., & Rodgers, B. (2006). Childhood Adversity and Adult Personality. Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 40, 482-490.
- Stiffman AR, Stelk W, Horwits SM, Evans Me, Outlaw Fh, Atkins M. “A Public Health Approach to Children’s Mental Health Services: Possible Solutions to Current Service inadequacies.” Adm Policy Ment Health. 2010 Mar; 37 (1-2): 120-4.
- Winnicott, DW (1953). Transitional Objects and Transitional Phenomena; A Study of the First Not-Me possession. The International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 34, 89–97.
