Abordajes individuales y comunitarios para afrontar experiencias traumáticas en la infancia/Facing Childhood Trauma within the Individual and the Community

Childhood trauma is not just traceable to a single event in a young life, but reorganizes a heritage that has been shaped by stressful experiences of ancestors. The individual memories combine with those that are passed on... [ view full abstract ]

Childhood trauma is not just traceable to a single event in a young life, but reorganizes a heritage that has been shaped by stressful experiences of ancestors. The individual memories combine with those that are passed on across generations: through communal culture, by parenting style, and as epigenetically transmitted experiences. Emotional neglect, abuse and inconsistent parenting by stressed caregivers, play a key role in life-long mental health complications, health risk behavior and disease in the parents of tomorrow who are raised in burdened families or under continuous trauma conditions, prone to pile up building blocks for mental disease. Given the high prevalence globally, of familial, sexual, organized violence and of relational victimization, short-term treatments are needed that are evidence-based, low-threshold and disseminable in order to face a multitude of social relational pain and violent trauma. To heal individuals and communities a cascade model of trauma-focused care including biographical approaches of narrative in-sensu exposure and testifying to human rights violations, will deactivate the trans-generational transmission and lead to enhanced functionality and health. Prioritizing trauma-focused public mental-health interventions renders a paradigm shift in psychotherapeutic and humanitarian assistance inevitable.