Holding and Treating the Traumatized Child: A Preschooler's Resilience in Mastering His Fears and Making Sense of His Life

This article focuses on the traumatic consequences and treatment implications for Edward, a preschool child I treated, whose history included physical abuse and neglect by his parents, as well as the chronic emotional abuse from watching the domestic violence of his alcoholic parents and witnessing the attempted murder of one parent by the other parent. Bowlby (1973), and Green, Voeller, Gaines, and Kubie (1981) have found that maltreated children tend to be intellectually delayed. These intellectual delays could result from a variety of factors, including lack of stimulation, maternal prenatal drug exposure, malnourishment, or chronic stress and its influence on information processing. Maltreatment is believed to disrupt general language skills and cause delays in expressive and receptive language (Cicchetti and Beeghly 1987, Cicchetti and Lynch 1995, Law and Conway 1992). These deficits are also influenced by features of the caretaking environment, such as fewer verbal interactions between parents and children, less verbal teaching, and insecure attachment (Cicchetti and Lynch 1995). Maltreated toddlers talk less about themselves and their internal states (e.g., happy, sad, etc.), particularly negative mood states, than nonmaltreated toddlers; they also make fewer verbal responses to social contingencies.

Children who witness extreme acts of violence represent a population that is at significant risk for developing anxiety, depression, phobic conduct, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Wolfe, McMahon, and Peters