Childhood trauma and the brain

What happens within the brain of those who experience childhood traumas, especially those whose traumas are unresolved?

Childhood trauma is another one of those terms that is bandied about often in a blasé way, and a term that we are hearing more regularly since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. But what exactly is it and how much of an effect does it really have on a child’s brain?

A childhood trauma is described as a traumatic event that is frightening, dangerous, or violent and poses a threat to a child's life or bodily integrity. It can be something that happens to them or can be something that they witness happening to someone else.

In South Africa, welfare organisations and therapists are seeing many more traumatised children since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. Not only have children’s sense of safety within the world as a whole been taken away by the pandemic, as the entire world was no longer a safer place, for many children being isolated at home and not being able to go to school has had terrible consequences.

This could be because school was a safe place from an abusive household, or a dangerous neighbourhood or a place where they received their only meal of the day. What sort of impact will this trauma, and any other childhood traumas have on the brains of children as they grow up?

“Any trauma, even those from early childhood, have an impact on a person’s brainwave activity and thus also their functioning,” explains Kerry Rudman from Brain Harmonics, a Neurofeedback organisation specialising in retraining brains.

“When someone experiences trauma, the brain pads brainwaves at the temporal lobes, where trauma is stored, to protect the person against the trauma.”

What is childhood trauma and how does it affect the brain?

Depending on the kind of trauma that occurred, either abandonment or infringement trauma (where your personal sense of safety in the world is stripped away), the padding will occur at either the left or right temporal lobe. This directly impacts a person’s coping mechanisms in conflict situations, putting them into either a fight-or-flight or freeze mode. Emotional results of these traumas will be rage, aggression, post-traumatic stress, anger, irritation, frustration, fear of confrontation, lack of personal boundaries and combinations of these.

“Because your brain’s only concern is survival, you could hold onto these patterns forever,” says Rudman. “If you have grown up in a house with a lot of screaming and shouting, your brain will reset your internal thermostat so that you are able to go on with things like eating and homework while you continue living there. It means that you will be able to carry on with life, but you will also always be on guard, you will always be waiting for the next thing to go wrong, and you are never able to totally relax!”

Without treatment, repeated childhood exposure to traumatic events can affect the brain and nervous system and increase health-risk behaviours (e.g., smoking, eating disorders, substance use, and high-risk activities). Research shows that child trauma survivors can be more likely to have long-term health problems (e.g., diabetes and heart disease) or to die at an earlier age.

Traumatic stress can also lead to increased use of health and mental health services and increased involvement with the child welfare and juvenile justice systems. Adult survivors of traumatic events may also have difficulty in establishing fulfilling relationships and maintaining employment.

How can neurofeedback training help the brain overcome a trauma?

“Brains faced with constant stress situations develop cortical strategies to get them through those situations. For example, a person whose life is in constant danger or under constant stress may develop a hyper-vigilant strategy and that strategy may work. that results in the irony that the strategy that the brain used to protect itself from a particular state begins to keep itself in that state. When the danger or stress is gone from the environment, the brain keeps looking for it and producing that same emotional response.”

The problem is that once the strategy becomes a part of the brain’s operating system, you can’t just turn it off,” explains Rudman. “Generally, Brain training allows your brain to see the pattern that your brain is holding on to and let it go or work out a new coping pattern.

“When these imbalances are rebalanced, it means that a person might be able to deal with life situations in a more productive way,” says Rudman. “Neurotherapy works incredibly fast at addressing these traumas, without the client having to relive the trauma, it’s almost like doing a “control, alt, delete” with your brain, allowing it to reset its holding pattern and respond in a more efficient, rational mode.” 

For more information about Neurofeedback and brain training, visit www.brainharmonics.co.za