Childhood Trauma and Adversity — Midterm Flashcards

What is trauma?

An overwhelming experience that threatens safety and can have lasting effects.

What are the five areas trauma can affect?

Relationships, thoughts, emotions, behaviors, and biology.

What is acute trauma?

Trauma from one event, such as a car accident.

What is chronic trauma?

Repeated or ongoing trauma, such as prolonged abuse.

What is insidious trauma?

Subtle, repeated adversity that accumulates, such as discrimination.

What is multigenerational trauma?

Trauma effects transmitted across generations.

What are the four stress responses?

Fight, flight, freeze, and fawn.

What is the ventral vagal state?

Feeling safe, calm, connected, and socially engaged.

What is the sympathetic state?

Mobilization for fight or flight during perceived danger.

What is the dorsal vagal shutdown state?

Immobilization, numbness, or collapse in response to overwhelming threat.

Who is the Caretaker conditioned self?

Someone who finds worth through caring for others.

Who is the Overachiever conditioned self?

Someone who pursues perfection and excessive responsibility.

Who is the Underachiever conditioned self?

Someone who avoids evaluation or judgment to feel safe.

Who is the Rescuer/Protector conditioned self?

Someone who feels compelled to rescue others.

Who is the Life of the Party conditioned self?

Someone who uses fun or distraction to avoid difficult emotions.

Who is the Yes Person conditioned self?

Someone who agrees with others and neglects personal needs.

Who is the Hero Worshipper conditioned self?

Someone who idealizes others and relies on their judgment.

What are primary emotions?

Initial, direct emotional responses, such as fear or sadness.

What are secondary emotions?

Emotions arising in response to another emotion, such as shame about fear.

What are Brown's three vulnerability-armory strategies?

Foreboding joy, perfectionism, and numbing.

What is foreboding joy?

Expecting disaster during happy moments.

What is perfectionism?

Believing perfection will prevent shame, criticism, or rejection.

What is emotional numbing?

Avoiding uncomfortable feelings through distraction or disconnection.

What is vulnerability?

Emotional exposure, uncertainty, and risk.

What is guilt?

Feeling bad about a behavior: "I did something bad."

What is shame?

Feeling fundamentally flawed: "I am bad."

How does guilt differ from shame?

Guilt focuses on behavior; shame focuses on identity.

Why is vulnerability considered courage?

It requires emotional risk and openness despite uncertainty.

What are Bartholomew's two attachment dimensions?

Attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance.

What characterizes secure attachment?

Low anxiety, low avoidance, and positive views of self and others.

What characterizes preoccupied attachment?

High anxiety, low avoidance, negative self-view, and positive other-view.

What characterizes dismissive attachment?

Low anxiety, high avoidance, positive self-view, and negative other-view.

What characterizes fearful attachment?

High anxiety, high avoidance, and negative views of self and others.

How can childhood trauma affect attachment?

It can undermine trust, safety, emotional regulation, and relationship expectations.

Are traumatized brains damaged or specialized?

Both: stress can impair development while strengthening threat detection.

What cognitive abilities may trauma impair?

Intelligence, memory, language, and inhibition.

What abilities may become specialized after trauma?

Detecting anger and remembering aggressive or negative events.

What are the three parts of Beck's cognitive triad?

Negative beliefs about the self, world, and future.

What are the four cognitive-onion layers?

Core beliefs, intermediate beliefs, automatic thoughts, and reactions.

What is a core belief?

A deep belief about oneself or the world, such as "I'm unlovable."

What are intermediate beliefs?

Attitudes, rules, and assumptions shaped by core beliefs.

What are automatic thoughts?

Immediate interpretations of situations, such as "She hates me."

What are the three types of reactions in the cognitive model?

Emotional, behavioral, and physiological.

What is cognitive dissonance?

Discomfort from conflicting beliefs, such as "My parent loves me but hurts me."

What is coregulation?

Helping another person regulate emotions and physiological stress.

Why do infants depend on coregulation?

They cannot independently regulate their emotions and stress responses.

How can comforting touch support coregulation?

It can increase feelings of safety and promote soothing biological responses.

What is emotional validation?

Acknowledging and accepting another person's emotional experience.

Why validate before problem-solving?

Validation helps someone feel understood and ready to consider solutions.

What is the freeze response?

Involuntary immobilization when fighting or escaping seems impossible.

What is the fawn response?

Appeasing someone threatening to reduce the risk of harm.

Why can trauma-related behavior be adaptive?

It may help a child survive an unsafe environment.

How can prenatal stress affect development?

Maternal stress can influence fetal brain development and later health.

What is epigenetics?

Environmental influences on gene expression without changing DNA sequence.

How does trauma affect higher brain functioning?

Stress can interfere with prefrontal development and cognitive control.

What is innate immunity?

Fast, general defense against threats, including inflammation.

What is adaptive immunity?

Targeted immune defense that develops memory of specific threats.

How can trauma affect immunity?

It may amplify innate inflammation and weaken adaptive immune functioning.

What are telomeres?

Protective chromosome-end caps that shorten with cell division.

How is trauma related to telomeres?

Chronic stress is associated with accelerated telomere shortening.

What is homeostasis?

Maintaining stable internal physiological conditions.

What is allostasis?

Adjusting physiological systems to meet changing demands.

What is allostatic load?

The cumulative physiological burden of repeated or chronic stress.

Why is minor trauma not necessarily minor?

Repeated smaller adversities can accumulate and cause significant harm.

What is social identity?

A person's identification with social groups and characteristics.

What does ADDRESSING represent?

Age, disabilities, religion, ethnicity, social status, sexuality, Indigenous heritage, nationality, and gender.

What is intersectionality?

The interaction of social identities in shaping experiences of advantage or disadvantage.

What are headwinds?

Obstacles that make progress more difficult.

What are tailwinds?

Advantages that make progress easier.

What is headwinds-tailwinds asymmetry?

Noticing one's obstacles more readily than one's advantages.

What are microaggressions?

Subtle discriminatory comments or behaviors that can accumulate over time.

What is person-first language?

Language placing personhood first, such as "person with a disability."

What is identity-first language?

Language naming identity first, such as "disabled person."

What is biological sex?

Sex-related biological traits, including chromosomes and anatomy.

What is gender?

A person's internal sense of gender identity.

What is sexual orientation?

A person's romantic or sexual attraction, or lack thereof.

What is human-giver syndrome?

The expectation that women prioritize caring for others over themselves.

What is racial capitalism?

An economic system in which racial hierarchies and exploitation support wealth creation.

What is chattel enslavement?

A system treating enslaved people as property that could be owned and sold.

What is race?

A social construct based on perceived shared physical characteristics.

What is ethnicity?

Shared cultural background, traditions, ancestry, or family connections.

What is racialization?

Categorizing people by race and assigning social meanings to those categories.

What is intrapersonal racism?

Racial biases or stereotypes held within an individual.

What is interpersonal racism?

Racial discrimination occurring between people.

What is institutionalized racism?

Racial inequalities embedded in institutional policies and practices.

What are the five disability models?

Medical, individual, social, economic, and tragedy.

What does the medical disability model emphasize?

Diagnosis, treatment, and correction of individual impairments.

What does the social disability model emphasize?

Societal barriers and inaccessible environments.

What does the economic disability model emphasize?

Productivity and the ability to participate in paid work.

What does the tragedy disability model emphasize?

Disability as inherently unfortunate or deserving of pity.

What is systemic trauma?

Trauma created or maintained by social and institutional conditions.

How can systemic trauma affect minoritized groups?

Greater adversity, discrimination, unequal treatment, and fewer recovery resources.

What is the first stage of the ACEs pyramid?

Adverse childhood experiences, including abuse, neglect, and household adversity.

What is the second stage of the ACEs pyramid?

Disrupted neurodevelopment.

What is the third stage of the ACEs pyramid?

Social, emotional, and cognitive impairment.

What is the fourth stage of the ACEs pyramid?

Adoption of health-risk behaviors.

What is the fifth stage of the ACEs pyramid?

Disease, disability, and social problems.

What is the sixth stage of the ACEs pyramid?

Early death.