Adverse childhood experience can have negative impacts on children and the adults they become. When adverse childhood experiences are increased in severity, or there is a multiplication in the number of individual incidences a child may encounter, this can have long lasting effects, impacting relationships with a spouse, colleagues, family, work ethic, financial health, mental health, physical health and so much more.
We are currently seeing some of the highest incidence rates in anxiety in young people since statistics have been documented in child and adolescent mental health. While there may be several different factors for this, in addition to the aftermath of COVID19, it is also known that anxiety is a symptom of some mental health disorders identified in adolescents and adults. Of course, not everybody who is experiencing anxiety, has also experienced childhood trauma, or has a diagnosable mental health condition.
This article that I co-authored, aimed to look at the correlation between childhood trauma, anxiety, and mental health disorders. In this study my colleagues and I examined affective and psychological routes from childhood maltreatment to increased paranoia in adulthood. Recent anxiety and negative beliefs about the self partially accounted for the associations between emotional or physical abuse and paranoia. However, as full mediation did not occur, other psychological, social, and biological pathways require further exploration.
To read the full article, click the link for more: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3825660/