Each day, case managers, psychiatric nurses, and other mental health professionals interact with adults who have a history of physical and/or sexual abuse during childhood. Many of these important professionals will often be the first practitioners to hear about a client′s background of abuse, but they may not have specialized training in understanding and working with survivors of childhood trauma. The Link Between Childhood Trauma and Mental Illness gives mental health professionals who are not child abuse specialists knowledge and skills that are especially relevant to their direct service role and practice context. It introduces to these practitioners a conceptual bridge between biomedical and psychosocial understandings of mental disorder, providing a multidimensional approach that allows professionals to think holistically and connect clients′ abusive pasts with their present-day symptoms and behaviors. Building upon this conceptual foundation, the book then focuses on direct practice issues, including how to ask clients about child abuse, the nature of power in the helping relationship, the full recovery process, effective treatment models, client safety issues, and ways to listen to client′s stories. Also included are valuable insights into helping clients who are in a crisis situation, the particular needs of male victims of child abuse, racial and cultural considerations, and the professional′s self-care. Designed to meet the needs of such helping professionals as case managers, psychiatric nurses, rehabilitation counselors, crisis and housing workers, occupational and physical therapists, family physicians, and social workers, The Link Between Childhood Trauma and Mental Illness is an accessible and convenient guide to understanding the effects of childhood abuse and incorporating that understanding into direct practice.

A pioneering physician reveals how childhood stress leads to lifelong health problems, and what we can do to break the cycle.

There is now ample evidence from the preclinical and clinical fields that early life trauma has both dramatic and long-lasting effects on neurobiological systems and functions that are involved in different forms of psychopathology as well as on health in general. To date, a comprehensive review of the recent research on the effects of early and later life trauma is lacking. This book fills an obvious gap in academic and clinical literature by providing reviews which summarize and synthesize these findings. Topics considered and discussed include the possible biological and neuropsychological effects of trauma at different epochs and their effect on health. This book will be essential reading for psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, mental health professionals, social workers, pediatricians and specialists in child development.

Adverse Childhood Experiences: Using Evidence to Advance Research, Practice, Policy, and Prevention defines ACEs, provides a summary of the past 20 years of ACEs research, as well as provides guidance for the future directions for the field. It includes a review of the original ACEs Study, definitions of ACEs, and how ACEs are typically assessed. Other content includes a review of how ACEs are related to mental and physical health outcome, the neurodevelopmental mechanisms linking ACEs to psychopathology, sexual violence and sexual health outcomes, and violence across the lifespan. Important and contemporary issues in the field, like reconsidering how ACEs should be defined and assessed, the appropriateness of routine ACEs screening, thinking about ACEs from a public health and global perspective, strategies for preventing ACEs, understanding ACEs and trauma-informed care and resilience, and the importance of safe stable and nurturing environments for children are discussed. Adverse Childhood Experiences is a useful evidence-based resource for professionals working with children and families, including physicians, nurses, social workers, psychologists, lawyers, judges, as well as public health leaders, policy makers, and government delegates. - Reviews the past 20 years of ACEs research - Examines ACEs and mental and physical health - Discusses the neurodevelopment mechanisms of ACEs and psychopathology - Examines ACEs and violence across the lifespan - Reconsiders the definition and assessment of ACEs - Examines the issue of routine ACEs screening - Discusses ACEs from a public health and global perspective - Summarizes effective ACEs prevention, trauma-informed care, and resilience - Provides recommendations for the future directions of the ACEs field

This book analyzes the individual and collective experience of and response to trauma from a wide range of perspectives including basic neuroscience, clinical science, and cultural anthropology. Each perspective presents critical and creative challenges to the other. The first section reviews the effects of early life stress on the development of neural systems and vulnerability to persistent effects of trauma. The second section of the book reviews a wide range of clinical approaches to the treatment of the effects of trauma. The final section of the book presents cultural analyses of personal, social, and political responses to massive trauma and genocidal events in a variety of societies. This work goes well beyond the neurobiological models of conditioned fear and clinical syndrome of post-traumatic stress disorder to examine how massive traumatic events affect the whole fabric of a society, calling forth collective responses of resilience and moral transformation.

An examination of the link between Adverse Childhood Events (ACE's) and adult illnesses.

Mental, neurological, and substance use disorders are common, highly disabling, and associated with significant premature mortality. The impact of these disorders on the social and economic well-being of individuals, families, and societies is large, growing, and underestimated. Despite this burden, these disorders have been systematically neglected, particularly in low- and middle-income countries, with pitifully small contributions to scaling up cost-effective prevention and treatment strategies. Systematically compiling the substantial existing knowledge to address this inequity is the central goal of this volume. This evidence-base can help policy makers in resource-constrained settings as they prioritize programs and interventions to address these disorders.

The Neurobiology of Schizophrenia begins with an overview of the various facets and levels of schizophrenia pathophysiology, ranging systematically from its genetic basis over changes in neurochemistry and electrophysiology to a systemic neural circuits level. When possible, the editors point out connections between the various systems. The editors also depict methods and research strategies used in the respective field. The individual backgrounds of the two editors promote a synthesis between basic neuroscience and clinical relevance. - Provides a comprehensive overview of neurobiological aspects of schizophrenia - Discusses schizophrenia at behavioral, cognitive, clinical, electrophysiological, molecular, and genetic levels - Edited by a translational researcher and a psychiatrist to promote synthesis between basic neuroscience and clinical relevance - Elucidates connections between the various systems depicted, when possible

For decades, the idea that serious mental illnesses (SMIs) are almost exclusively biologically-based and must be treated pharmacologically has been commonplace in psychology literature. As a result, many mental health professionals have stopped listening to their clients, categorizing their symptoms as manifestations of neurologically-based disturbed thinking. Trauma and Serious Mental Illness is the groundbreaking series of works that challenge this standard view and provides a comprehensive introduction to the emerging perspective of SMIs as trauma-based. This unique collection illustrates how different psychotherapy approaches can lead to reduced symptomatology, decreased psychological distress, and improved functioning in individuals living with SMIs.

Each year, child protective services receive reports of child abuse and neglect involving six million children, and many more go unreported. The long-term human and fiscal consequences of child abuse and neglect are not relegated to the victims themselves-they also impact their families, future relationships, and society. In 1993, the National Research Council (NRC) issued the report, Under-standing Child Abuse and Neglect, which provided an overview of the research on child abuse and neglect. New Directions in Child Abuse and Neglect Research updates the 1993 report and provides new recommendations to respond to this public health challenge. According to this report, while there has been great progress in child abuse and neglect research, a coordinated, national research infrastructure with high-level federal support needs to be established and implemented immediately. New Directions in Child Abuse and Neglect Research recommends an actionable framework to guide and support future child abuse and neglect research. This report calls for a comprehensive, multidisciplinary approach to child abuse and neglect research that examines factors related to both children and adults across physical, mental, and behavioral health domains-including those in child welfare, economic support, criminal justice, education, and health care systems-and assesses the needs of a variety of subpopulations. It should also clarify the causal pathways related to child abuse and neglect and, more importantly, assess efforts to interrupt these pathways. New Directions in Child Abuse and Neglect Research identifies four areas to look to in developing a coordinated research enterprise: a national strategic plan, a national surveillance system, a new generation of researchers, and changes in the federal and state programmatic and policy response.