Childhood Trauma in Mental Disorders: A Comprehensive Approach

456 Pages·2020·7.499 MB·English

by  Gianfranco Spalletta (editor), Delfina Janiri (editor), Federica Piras (editor), Gabriele Sani (editor)

Childhood Trauma in
Mental Disorders
A Comprehensive Approach
Gianfranco Spalletta
Delfina Janiri
Federica Piras
Gabriele Sani
Editors
123
Childhood Trauma in Mental Disorders
Gianfranco Spalletta • Delfina Janiri
Federica Piras • Gabriele Sani
Editors
Childhood Trauma
in Mental Disorders
A Comprehensive Approach
Editors
Gianfranco Spalletta Delfina Janiri
Laboratory of Neuropsychiatry Department of Psychiatry and Neurology
IRCCS Fondazione Santa Lucia Sapienza University of Rome
Rome Rome
Italy Italy
Menninger Department of Psychiatry Fondazione Policlinico Universitario
and Behavioral Sciences, Baylor College “Agostino Gemelli” IRCCS
of Medicine Rome
Houston, TX Italy
USA
Centro Lucio Bini
Rome
Federica Piras
Italy
Laboratory of Neuropsychiatry
IRCCS Fondazione Santa Lucia
Gabriele Sani
Rome
Department of Neuroscience, Section
Italy
of Psychiatry, Università Cattolica del
Sacro Cuore
Rome
Italy
Fondazione Policlinico Universitario
“Agostino Gemelli” IRCCS
Rome
Italy
Centro Lucio Bini
Rome
Italy
ISBN 978-3-030-49413-1 ISBN 978-3-030-49414-8 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49414-8
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
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Preface
This book reports the current achievements in the understanding of traumatic spec-
trum symptomatology across mental disorders and tries to clarify some of the many
controversies about the underpinning neurobiological mechanisms. Editors and
authors focused on the definition of symptoms of childhood trauma and their persis-
tence and/or development into adolescence and adulthood. Our goal was to empha-
size the mental health risk related to childhood trauma and its enduring
psychobiological effects. In light of this, the way to understand trauma-related dis-
orders needs to be revisited and perhaps, to be provocative, even reconceptualized.
We think that improving our knowledge on this topic may be a challenge of extreme
importance, given that early life trauma/adversities affect about half of the popula-
tion of children and young adults. Apart from the immediate effects of trauma, early
adversities also increase the risk for developing mental and physical problems later
in life. We hope that a closer consideration of early traumatic experiences may help,
in the near future, to revolutionize diagnostic and therapeutic approaches to mental
disorders.
Readers will be informed about how traumatizing events, including events per-
ceived as such, evoke defense states, and thus determine responses aimed at ensur-
ing biological survival. The persistent deregulation of brain–body
psycho-physiological integration prolongs symptoms even after the danger has
passed, leading to what we call trauma-related disorders. Although sensitization
and/or conditional learning processes may account for symptom duration, we must
try to understand whether the prolongation of defensive responses, once the threat
has ceased, might have some biological value. Clinicians and researchers should
examine this potential mechanistic link consistently with a developmental perspec-
tive, since traumatizing nurturing environment predicts unfavorable outcomes, such
as chronic overwhelming stress, and determines psychobiological and psychiatric
effects on child development. On the other hand, we may hypothesize that what is
commonly regarded as a deviation from “optimal” development could conversely
reflect an initial adaptation, even if the final developmental outcome is unfavorable.
Examining trauma-related disorders through the prism of biological survival, we
should consider that psychiatric phenomenology related to childhood trauma may
represent “facultative” responses (i.e., responses selected as biologically valuable in
the behavioral repertoire) in specific environmental contexts. This wide range of
possibilities could allow us to even reconceptualize the relationship between
v
vi Preface
childhood trauma and mental disorders and to consider some psychiatric symptoms
as adaptive responses. In this case, we may assume that natural selection enhances
developmental strategies and promotes immediate survival, even if negative conse-
quences may occur later in life.
In the book, a panel of experts in the field thoroughly reviewed, from a psycho-
biological perspective, the harmful effects of early adversities on the developing
brain and analyzed biological mechanisms underpinning subsequent emergence of
psychiatric symptoms. An alternative view has also been considered and involves
the neuroplastic adaptive variation in individuals with heightened neurobiological
susceptibility. In the section of the book dedicated to the potential pathogenic link
between childhood trauma and mental disorders, authors addressed the individual
differential susceptibility to (eventually unfavorable) environmental conditions. In
order to promote biological survival, individuals with specific neurobiological sus-
ceptibility may change their structural/functional neuro-circuitries, and their
immune/neuroendocrine defense systems in response to peculiar nurturing environ-
ments. Later in life, this mechanism results in developmental trajectories culminat-
ing in maladaptive psychopathology, which is likely determined by the interaction
between neurobiological individual susceptibility and negative environmental fac-
tors. This new perspective may have crucial clinical implications. If we consider
childhood trauma-related manifestations as attempts to adapt homeostasis in
response to environmental conditions, we can treat symptoms by promoting sup-
portive contexts and alternative strategies for maintaining physiological integrity,
enhance individual adaptive traits, and potentially divert negative developmental
outcomes.
Research and treatment in modern psychiatry cannot ignore that: (i) childhood
trauma has a role in shaping subsequent clinical pictures, and (ii) psycho/biological-
developmental approaches should be applied to the individual prediction of out-
comes and to tailor intervention strategies in the framework of personilized
medicine. Experts in social and phenomenological fields suggest to further focus on
the reliability of biological indices of neurobiological susceptibility, in order to
apply multidimensional metrics in the design and the evaluation of interventions,
particularly at the prevention level.
We hope that this book will provide the knowledge and awareness necessary to
embrace an advantageous integrative research approach to prevent, treat, and reha-
bilitate childhood trauma-related mental disorders. An extended hope is that new
treatment avenues will derive from the consideration of the adaptive strategies and
traits expressed by traumatized children, in the struggle to maintain their physiolog-
ical and psychological integrity.
Rome, Italy Gianfranco Spalletta
Rome, Italy Delfina Janiri
Rome, Italy Federica Piras
Rome, Italy Gabriele Sani
Contents
Part I General
1 Introduction on Childhood Trauma in Mental Disorders:
A Comprehensive Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Delfina Janiri, Gabriele Sani, Federica Piras,
and Gianfranco Spalletta
2 The Concept of Childhood Trauma in Psychopathology:
Definitions and Historical Perspectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Gretchen Buchanan, Abigail H. Gewirtz, Cara Lucke,
and Monica R. Wambach
Part II Neurobiology
3 Neuroimaging and Cognition of Early Traumatic Experiences . . . . . . 29
Michela Sala, Giuseppe Delvecchio, and Paolo Brambilla
4 Perinatal Mental Health and Childhood Trauma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Jessica Trinetti, Rebecca Bind, Kristi Sawyer,
and Carmine M. Pariante
5 Electroencephalography and Childhood Trauma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Alessio Simonetti
6 Interaction Between Genes and Childhood Trauma
on the Outcome of Psychiatric Disorders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Marta de Castro-Catala, Sergi Papiol, Neus Barrantes-Vidal,
and Araceli Rosa
7 Childhood Trauma, Attachment Patterns, and Psychopathology:
An Evolutionary Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
Alfonso Troisi
Part III Neuropsychiatric Disorders
8 Childhood Trauma in Bipolar Disorders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
Delfina Janiri, Gianfranco Spalletta, and Gabriele Sani
vii
viii Contents
9 Childhood Trauma in Depressive Disorders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
Monica Aas and Bruno Etain
10 Childhood Trauma in Psychoses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
Ruud van Winkel and Aleksandra Lecei
11 PTSD During Childhood, Childhood Trauma, Childhood
Maltreatment and How They Relate to Adult PTSD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
Dominik Andreas Moser, Francesca Suardi,
and Daniel Scott Schechter
12 Childhood Trauma and Personality Disorder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
Claire Perry and Royce Lee
13 Childhood Trauma and Substance Dependence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257
Hanie Edalati
14 Childhood Trauma in Obsessive-C ompulsive Disorder . . . . . . . . . . . . 287
Federica Piras and Gianfranco Spalletta
15 Childhood Trauma in Eating Disorders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313
Carolina Anaya, Seeba Anam, Hana F. Zickgraf,
Shannon M. O’Connor, and Jennifer E. Wildes
16 Childhood Trauma and Dissociative Disorders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333
Vedat Şar
17 Trauma in Children with Neurodevelopmental Disorders: Autism,
Intellectual Disability, and Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity
Disorder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 367
Daniel W. Hoover
18 Neurobiological Basis of Childhood Trauma and the Risk
for Neurological Deficits Later in Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 385
Francesca Assogna, Federica Piras, and Gianfranco Spalletta
Part IV S ocial and Therapeutic Implications
19 Childhood Trauma and Stigma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 413
Nerisa Banaj and Clelia Pellicano
20 Treatment of Childhood Trauma: Pharmacological Approach . . . . . . 431
Isabella Panaccione, Gianluigi Di Cesare, Gabriele Sani,
and Giuseppe Ducci
21 Childhood Trauma-Related Interventions: Treatment at Different
Stages Across the Life Span . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 443
Mayra A. Gomez and Lisa M. Brown
Part I
General
Introduction on Childhood Trauma 1
in Mental Disorders: A Comprehensive
Approach
Delfina Janiri, Gabriele Sani, Federica Piras,
and Gianfranco Spalletta
The exposure to negative events emotionally overwhelming can lead to traumatic
memories, altered sense of self, emotional dysregulation, and avoidance. This is a
picture consistently described since Homer’s poems [1]. In book 19 of the Odyssey,
Odysseus, which has at last come home to Ithaca, is recognized by a scar on his
thigh. Odysseus describes the origin of the scar, a hunting accident occurred in his
boyhood, at a boar hunt during the time of his visit to his grandfather Autolycus.
The scar was already in his name: his grandfather called him “Odysseus” meaning
“the hated one” because Autolycus had many enemies. The second great Homeric
hero, Achilles, was killed by an arrow hitting his heel. To prevent his predicted early
D. Janiri
Department of Psychiatry and Neurology, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy
Fondazione Policlinico Universitario “Agostino Gemelli” IRCCS, Rome, Italy
Centro Lucio Bini, Rome, Italy
e-mail: [email protected]
G. Sani
Fondazione Policlinico Universitario “Agostino Gemelli” IRCCS, Rome, Italy
Centro Lucio Bini, Rome, Italy
Department of Neuroscience, Section of Psychiatry, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore,
Rome, Italy
e-mail: [email protected]
F. Piras
Laboratory of Neuropsychiatry, IRCCS Fondazione Santa Lucia, Rome, Italy
e-mail: [email protected]
G. Spalletta (*)
Laboratory of Neuropsychiatry, IRCCS Fondazione Santa Lucia, Rome, Italy
Menninger Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Baylor College of Medicine,
Houston, TX, USA
e-mail: [email protected]
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 3
G. Spalletta et al. (eds.), Childhood Trauma in Mental Disorders,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49414-8_1