2016/07/29 by Susan W. Coates, Susan Coates · 1 citation
Psychology · #Child Abuse and Trauma #Counseling, Therapy, and Family Dynamics #Identity, Memory, and Therapy
paper · doi:10.1177/0003065116659443
openalex publication_date 2016/07/29 · crossref created 2016/07/29 · crossref issued 2016/07/30 · crossref published 2016/07/30 · crossref published-online 2016/07/30 · crossref published-print 2016/08/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · crossref deposited 2026/04/28 · crossref indexed 2026/07/29 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
Three important areas of current inquiry concerning early trauma-the respective roles of reality and fantasy, age-related capacity for the symbolic representation of trauma, and attachment status-are approached through clinical case reports of three children seen initially at very early ages. The findings are relevant to the issue of whether preverbal infants can experience traumatic events that later are available to interpretation. The focus is for the most part on event traumas-single harrowing, life-threatening experiences-occurring at quite early ages. Three main points are emphasized. First, toddlers and infants (including neonates) can experience intense pain and show symptoms of traumatization. They are capable of experiencing an event as harrowing and life-threatening. Second, these events are capable of being memorialized or symbolically represented, that is, stored in memory in a way that can affect later behavior and learning. Third, how that traumatization resolves itself, or fails to, can be decisively affected by the functioning of the attachment system.