Session 3: Intro to Trauma-Informed Care - Types of Trauma including Complex Developmental Trauma

Welcome to the third session of The Introduction to Trauma-Informed Care. We’re going to start this session by looking at different types of trauma. The first type of trauma is acute trauma. Acute trauma is a one-time event. Examples of acute traumas are a car accident, an assault, a house fire, a tornado, or a neighborhood shooting. When a child or adolescent experiences an acute trauma, they must have the opportunity to process that event, preferably within 24 – 48 hours, so that the event doesn’t stay present in their emotional circuitry, remaining to be triggered throughout their lifetime.
The next type of trauma is chronic trauma. Chronic means there have been continual traumatic experiences. This can be chronic community or war violence, and It can also include chronic abuse, including physical and sexual abuse. The third type of trauma is complex developmental trauma, defined by four elements. First, it is trauma that happens early in life, specifically under the age of 5. Why? Because of disrupted brain development. It is happening at an astounding rate in the early days, months, and years of a child’s life. Trauma that occurs during this critical period can leave a lifelong negative impact. The next element is that complex developmental trauma is chronic – it keeps the developing brain in constant high stress. Constantly elevated cortisol levels are toxic and break down neurological connections and body systems. The third factor is that it involves a form of maltreatment, either abuse or neglect, and forth - there has been a failure on the part of a caregiver - meaning either the caregiver perpetrated the abuse, or the caregiver failed to keep the child safe from the abuser. Children and adolescents with complex developmental trauma will have complex needs.
Now, let’s press into the developmental impact of early trauma.
Next is indiscriminate attachment. Have you been in a place where there are children you don’t know at all who run up to hug you, jump on you or crawl in your lap? This behavior is indiscriminate attachment. Indiscriminate attachment occurs when children have had multiple caregivers and have failed to develop special bonds with exclusive caregivers. These children haven’t learned to go to just a few safe adults, but rather, they see all adults, including strangers, as people who could meet their needs.
The final developmental impact we will discuss is the effect of early trauma on executive functioning. The Harvard University Center on the Developing Child describes executive functioning as the mental processes that enable us to plan, focus attention, remember instructions, control impulses, and juggle multiple tasks successfully. Executive functioning happens in the prefrontal cortex area of the brain – right here behind the forehead, and it’s the last part of the brain to fully develop. Remember, being a safe adult means we pause to always think about the meaning behind the behavior and then respond to the need rather than react to the behavior. This is a crucial learning point – when I learn about trauma-informed care, I am the one who changes. I grow in my understanding, I learn to recognize the meaning behind the behavior, rather than interpreting everything as “bad behavior,” and I learn to respond rather than react.