Trauma in infancy includes abuse and neglect, both of which are under-reported – although neglect and abandonment are less likely to be identified than violent maltreatment (Schore, in Siegel and Solomon, 2003). Neglected infants show flattened affect while physically abused infants show high levels of negative affect. Evidence suggests that neglect may be more damaging than abuse and there is a link between neglect in childhood and antisocial personality disorders later in life. The worst scenario is often where there is a combination of both abuse and neglect. Such developmental trauma tends to be cumulative – a feature of the impaired attachment relationship.
Relational trauma is imprinted through right brain to right brain interactions as the child resonates with the ‘rhythmic structures of a mother’s dysregulated states’ – the intergenerational transmission of trauma (Schore, 2019, p.238). Such ‘psychopathogenetic socioemotional contexts’ are linked with histories of minimal spontaneous play. Such an infant avoids spontaneous interpersonal novelty, instead engaging in repetitive defensive play. Early intersubjective and later symbolic play fails to develop leading to a deficit in these growth-promoting adaptive capacities.
The relational modulation of fearful arousal lies at the heart of attachment (Schore, 2012). Attachment is the regulation of interactive synchrony and so attachment stress is asynchrony in interactions. In optimal situations, synchrony is quickly re-established which helps with stress recovery and coping. The maternal response to the infant’s cry is a ‘fundamental’ behaviour of attachment and is accompanied by activation of the right brain of the mother. In a growth-inhibiting environment the caregiver ‘induces’ traumatic states of lasting negative affect and creates less interactive synchronous play. Her attachment is weak and thus she provides little protection against potential abuse from others. The caregiver is inaccessible and reacts in a rejecting or inappropriate way to stress from the infant. Instead of modulating arousal she induces extreme stimulation in which arousal is very high in abuse and very low in neglect. These states are enduring because there is no interactive repair. The infant’s reaction to trauma involves first hyperarousal and then dissociation.
When infants’ attempts to repair the interaction fail, they lose control of posture, withdraw and self-comfort (Schore, 2012). Tronick describes this disengagement as ‘profound’ even with a short disruption of the ‘mutual regulatory process’ and ‘break in intersubjectivity’. The infant reacts in a similar way to Harlow’s isolated monkeys or infants in institutions that Spitz and Bowlby studied.
References
Schore, A. N. (2012). The science of the art of psychotherapy (Norton series on interpersonal neurobiology). W. W. Norton & Company.
Schore, A. N. (2019). The development of the unconscious mind (Norton series on interpersonal neurobiology). W. W. Norton & Company.
Solomon, M., & Siegel, D. J. (2003). Healing trauma: Attachment, mind, body and brain (Norton series on interpersonal neurobiology). W. W. Norton & Company.