transgenerational transfer
SCARS
THAT
WON’T
HEAL: THE NEUROBIOLOGY
OF CHILD ABUSE
By Martin H. Teicher
68
In 1994 Boston police were shocked to discover a malnourished four-year-old locked away in a filthy Roxbury apartment, where he lived in dreadfully squalid conditions. Worse, the boy’s tiny hands were found to have been horrendously burned. It emerged that his drug-abusing mother had held the child’s hands under a steaming-hot faucet to punish him for eating her boyfriend’s food, despite her instructions not to do so. The ailing youngster had been given no medical care at all.
The disturbing story quickly made national headlines. Later placed in foster care, the boy received skin grafts to help his scarred hands regain their function.
But even though the victim’s physical wounds were treated, recent research findings indicate that any injuries inflicted to his developing mind may never truly heal.
Though an extreme example, the notorious case is unfortunately not all that uncommon. Every year child welfare agencies in the U.S. receive more than three million allegations of childhood abuse and neglect and collect sufficient
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN
evidence to substantiate more than a million instances.
It is hardly surprising to us that research reveals a strong link between physical, sexual and emotional mistreatment of children and the development of psychiatric problems. But in the early 1990s mental health professionals believed that emotional and social difficulties occurred mainly through psychological means.
Childhood maltreatment was understood either to foster the development of intrapsychic defense mechanisms that proved to be self-defeating in adulthood or to arrest psychosocial development, leaving a
“wounded child” within. Researchers thought of the damage as basically a software problem amenable to reprogramming via therapy or simply erasable through the exhortation “Get over it.”
New investigations into the consequences of early
THAT
WON’T
HEAL: THE NEUROBIOLOGY
OF CHILD ABUSE
By Martin H. Teicher
68
In 1994 Boston police were shocked to discover a malnourished four-year-old locked away in a filthy Roxbury apartment, where he lived in dreadfully squalid conditions. Worse, the boy’s tiny hands were found to have been horrendously burned. It emerged that his drug-abusing mother had held the child’s hands under a steaming-hot faucet to punish him for eating her boyfriend’s food, despite her instructions not to do so. The ailing youngster had been given no medical care at all.
The disturbing story quickly made national headlines. Later placed in foster care, the boy received skin grafts to help his scarred hands regain their function.
But even though the victim’s physical wounds were treated, recent research findings indicate that any injuries inflicted to his developing mind may never truly heal.
Though an extreme example, the notorious case is unfortunately not all that uncommon. Every year child welfare agencies in the U.S. receive more than three million allegations of childhood abuse and neglect and collect sufficient
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN
evidence to substantiate more than a million instances.
It is hardly surprising to us that research reveals a strong link between physical, sexual and emotional mistreatment of children and the development of psychiatric problems. But in the early 1990s mental health professionals believed that emotional and social difficulties occurred mainly through psychological means.
Childhood maltreatment was understood either to foster the development of intrapsychic defense mechanisms that proved to be self-defeating in adulthood or to arrest psychosocial development, leaving a
“wounded child” within. Researchers thought of the damage as basically a software problem amenable to reprogramming via therapy or simply erasable through the exhortation “Get over it.”
New investigations into the consequences of early