The effects of gender violence on the development of children
The sons and daughters of families in which there is gender violence are also victims of these destructive dynamics. In fact, the experiences they live in their homes affect their neurobiological development, and the mark of psychological trauma is imprinted on his brain.
Thus, We interviewed the neuropsychologist Javier Elcarte and the psychologist Cristina Cortés, from the Vitaliza Psychology Center, to learn about this harmful phenomenon that links gender violence and child abuse.
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Interview with Vitaliza: childhood trauma due to gender violence and its impact on the brain
javier el carte She is a psychologist specialized in psychotherapy and neuropsychology, and Director of the Vitaliza Psychology Center, located in Pamplona. Cristina Cortés is a psychologist specializing in child and adolescent therapy and perinatal psychology. In these lines we ask them about the relationship between the exposure of boys and girls to gender violence in their families and the impact that this has on their neurobiological development.
Many times gender violence is spoken of as if its effects did not go beyond the impact that the aggressor has on the direct victim. What does it mean for a son or daughter in this relationship to experience these attacks at the moment they occur?
J.E.: In its 2010 report, the UN includes in its definition of child abuse the cases of physical or psychological abuse, sexual abuse, neglect, neglect, exposure to intimate partner violence, and commercial or other exploitation guy. We therefore agree with the United Nations that gender violence is a form of child abuse.
In the same vein, the American Academy of Pediatrics stated in 1998 that witnessing domestic violence can be so traumatic such as being a victim of physical and sexual abuse, given that the patterns of alterations in boys and girls exposed to violence are superimposable.
Exposure to violence in the family nucleus during childhood breaks the perception of security in attachment figures and emotional contagion is experienced by both the aggressor and the victim.
What are the most common psychological consequences that gender violence can leave in the youngest?
C.C.: In the absence of a theoretical model on the impact of gender violence on the development of the child's brain and personality or girl, we assume that this impact does not differ from that of a boy or girl exposed to maltreatment or any other type of abuse or violence.
In an interesting study, Berman compares the impact on minors exposed to gender violence with respect to minors exposed to armed conflicts. Some of the conclusions are very significant.
Among those exposed to war violence there was a "before", happy and normal, interrupted by war. Those exposed to gender violence did not know the “before”. They had grown up in an atmosphere of terror, they did not know security.
The first presented an optimistic story, they felt lucky to have survived. In seconds the story was a compendium of pain, sadness and shame. For many, the best moments of their lives were in foster homes.
For the former, the enemy was clearly defined. While the minors exposed to gender violence presented enormous ambivalence with respect to the abuser. There is a general mistrust in relationships.
In addition, in the former the pain was shared and public, and in the latter the pain was "silenced", lived in isolation, given the impossibility of sharing the pain with anyone.
Is this psychological impact reflected only in the emotions and behavior of the little ones, or does it also physically alter the development of their brain?
J.E.: A team of researchers from the Federal Polytechnic School of Lausanne led by Professor Carmen Sandi has shown a correlation between psychological trauma and specific changes in the brain, in turn linked to aggressive behaviour, which he shows that people exposed to childhood trauma not only suffer psychologically, but also suffer alterations cerebral.
Teicher states that early chronic trauma appears to affect neurodevelopment if it occurs during the critical period of formation when the brain is physically sculpted by experience, leaving an indelible mark on its structure and functionality.
Several studies using nuclear magnetic resonance (MRI) confirmed the existence of an association between early abuse and reduction in the size of the adult hippocampus. Also the amygdala it can be smaller.
In the 1990s, J. Douglas Bremner and colleagues found that the left hippocampus of abused patients with post-traumatic stress disorder it was, on average, 12% smaller than the hippocampus of healthy control subjects, although the right hippocampus was of normal size. Similar results were found by Murray B. Stein from the University of California San Diego and Martin Driessen from Gilead Hospital in Bielefeld, Germany.
On the other hand, Teicher, Andersen, and Gield found that in adults who had been abused or abandoned, the midparts of the corpus callosum were significantly smaller than those of the group control. These results were confirmed by research carried out with primates by Mara M. Emory Sanchez.
Reduction in the area or integrity of the corpus callosum is the most consistent neurobiologic finding in children and adults with a history of childhood exposure, abuse, or trauma.
What can psychologists contribute when addressing in psychotherapy these cases of children marked by violence in dysfunctional families?
C.C.: The first thing we have to guarantee is security. If the minor is not safe and protected, no intervention can be considered. Vulnerable family members must be protected from the aggressor.
The intervention must be approached in a systemic way. You have to intervene with the mother, help her recover and trust in her ability to adequately care for her children. Get her out of a defenseless state and recover her functionality so that her children can feel safe in her.
Security in their ability to manage life and protect them. This is the prelude to any intervention.
Regarding the techniques used to intervene in the trauma of these minors affected by family violence, which are the most used?
J.E.: The developmental trauma, that produced by the lack of synchronicity in the relationships of basic attachment, leads to a chronic lack of regulation of both the brain, the mind and the body. These children develop in a state of hyper or hypoarousal and do not have the ability to inhibit irrelevant stimuli, they move in a state of constant alert.
If the learning of emotion regulation does not take place in the early stages of childhood, as Van der Kolk says, there is little possibilities that later experience may incorporate the necessary neuroplasticity to overcome the decisive periods of development.
Therapies such as biofeedback and neurofeedback allow training the regulation of the nervous system. As Sebern Fisher explains in his book on trauma and neurofeedback: neurofeedback widens the brain's threshold and makes it easier to strengthen resilience to stress.
A higher level of regulation will allow us to more easily calm the states of activation and will allow us to combine said regulation with specific therapies for work with trauma, focused on the bodily experience and the mark left by said experiences on the body. In this way, we can address conscious desensitization to the discomfort caused by traumatic events with greater guarantees.
In our Vitaliza psychology center we combine bio and neurofeedback on the one hand and mindfulness as regulatory tools that allow us a more effective processing of trauma through intervention with EMDR.
How does the process of improving children take place? Do many years have to pass to recover a certain well-being?
C.C.: If growth and development have occurred in a devastating environment, the trauma has a cumulative effect. Both the self-perceptions regarding oneself and the perceptions of others are negative and no one is trusted.
The evolutionary sequence of normative development is altered and everything is permeated by this physiological dysregulation.
This implies and requires years of intervention, demanding an adequate therapeutic bond, a lot of patience and a lot of skill on the part of the therapist.
What legal and administrative changes should be produced beyond the scope of psychotherapy so that these little ones have it easier to maintain a good quality of life?
C.C.: Unfortunately, on many occasions, the social, judicial and even therapeutic protection system can contribute to re-traumatization.
When custody is allowed and maintained with the abuser or abuser, when the testimonies of the children are not taken into account account and it is considered that there is not enough evidence to delimit said contacts, the insecurity of the victim persists in the time.
Thus, that basic security that one does not have, that underlying insecurity increases and many of these children live their lives automatically without hope in anything or anyone.
The feeling of vulnerability is the only thing that persists. We must listen, protect the minor over the adult. Never forget your rights.