Why Childhood Trauma is in the Little Things too

Image by Oxana Lyashenko

When we think about childhood trauma, we often think of the worst things. And as a therapist who specialises in trauma healing, I work with many people who have experienced truly awful childhoods. Hearing their stories can be heartbreaking – and if you went through something like this, my heart goes out to you, as it may well have caused internal wounds that you are still struggling to heal.

But experts in the trauma field increasingly understand that smaller, less obviously hurtful experiences can also be traumatic for children. Dr Francine Shapiro, founder of EMDR, calls these ‘little t’ traumas, which she argues be just as problematic as ‘big T’ traumas like being in a car crash, or on a battlefield. What does this mean in reality? Here are some common little t traumas:

• Being bullied, at home or in school

• Witnessing domestic violence in your family

• Being invalidated, unsupported or belittled by your parents

• Experiencing racism, or any other kind of prejudice

• Being neurodivergent in a school designed for neurotypical kids

• Having a sibling who is clearly loved and cherished more than you

• One of your parents abusing substances on a regular basis

• Losing a parent, or another beloved family member, suddenly and traumatically

• Being forced to move home, or school, often throughout your childhood

Your developing brain

One of the reasons experiences like these are so impactful on children is that, when you are small, your brain and the rest of your nervous system is still developing. For example, in small children the right hemisphere of the brain is dominant, with the left hemisphere developing later in childhood. And the right hemisphere is (broadly, although as with everything in the brain it’s more complex than this!) focused on emotion, with the left hemisphere specialising in language, detail and rational thinking. This is one reason small children are so emotional, because they lack the brain structure needed to self-soothe, or understand their experience in a rational way. Little kids just feel, deeply and overwhelmingly, whatever they are experiencing.

If you are a parent, or have kids in your life for any other reason, you will know exactly what I mean. Children feel their emotions – anger, hurt and sadness, or joy and excitement – in a beautifully rich and profound way. Also in a deeply somatic way – watch a toddler having a tantrum, face screwed up, kicking their legs and pounding their little fists to see what this looks like. Feeling intense and and frustration is a whole-body experience for them. They also struggle to make sense of what’s happening, to give it context or make meaning of it, because their developing brain just doesn’t have the neural architecture to do this yet.

Changing the story of your life

This is why trauma-informed therapy can help you make sense of what happened to you, using your high-powered, fully developed adult brain to tell a new story about your traumatic childhood experiences. For example, if you were bullied at school, your adult brain can understand that this was not a sign of weakness or some other character flaw on your part – it was all about the bullies, unhappy kids trying to gain some sense of power and control by taunting their more sensitive classmate. If your parents favoured a sibling over you, your mature brain can see that this is just bad parenting – it’s Parenting 101 to love all your kids equally, to make them feel cherished and valued, so had nothing to do with your likeability or lovability as a child.

And this is one reason I write these posts – sharing key ideas with you from the worlds of psychology and psychotherapy, to help you make sense of painful life experiences and tell a new, more hopeful and self-compassionate story about your life. This is step one of the healing process, alongside learning coping skills to help regulate your nervous system, process traumatic memories and build healing, compassionate relationships with the hurt parts of you. There are many trauma-informed therapies that can help with this process, including sensorimotor psychotherapy, trauma-informed stabilisation treatment, EMDR, schema therapy and internal family systems.

I hope that helps – and please do find a good trauma-informed therapist if you are struggling with the impact of childhood trauma. You may also enjoy this practice I created for Insight Timer – The Story of You: How to Build Self-Compassion. Click on the button below to listen to it now.

Love,

Dan ❤️

Why Attunement is Crucial for Children (and Parents too)

As a trauma therapist, I hear some truly awful stories. Very sadly, some of my clients endured the worst kinds of childhoods imaginable – and, as adults, find day-to-day life a real struggle, because the wounds of their childhood are so hard to heal. When we hear the word ‘trauma’, these are the kinds of experiences we think about, but it’s important to understand that much milder, albeit highly painful experiences, also shape children’s personalities in surprisingly powerful ways.

I’m currently writing a book on healing childhood trauma (not due to be published until 2026 I’m afraid, but watch this space for details), so am thinking about these kinds of problems non-stop. What is it that causes childhood trauma? Why are some kids profoundly affected by seemingly quite mild problems in the family? How much of that is nature and how much nurture – meaning, are these vulnerabilities primarily genetic, because of the parenting we receive, or a mixture of the two?

There is obviously a lot to talk about here and the answers to these questions are nuanced and complex – that’s why I’m writing a book about it! But I would like to focus on one key idea for this post, which is the concept of attunement. This refers to the ability of your caregivers to attune to you, from birth onwards. The focus here is often on the mother-baby relationship, because our mother is often our primary caregiver, especially in our early years (if someone else fulfilled this role for you, like a father, older sibling, grandparent or adoptive parent, please adapt the language to fit your experience).

How secure attachment forms

Let’s bring in a related concept, which is that of attachment. Ideally, your attachment bond with your mother would have been secure, helping you form a secure attachment style for the rest of your life. Research consistently shows that around 50 per cent of children are lucky enough to experience this, while the other 50 per cent normally have either an avoidant or anxious attachment style. If you were one of the lucky ones who experienced secure attachment, being in your mother’s arms would have felt like the safest, most delicious place in the world. (There’s a reason researchers call this state attachment bliss, because it feels wonderful for both the little boy or girl and their attachment figure).

She would have fed you, kept you clean and dry, comforted you when you cried and entertained you when you were bored. This is how secure attachment forms, because you would have felt warm, happy and deeply connected to her, with an in-your-bones kind of trust and safety. And attunement is the skill your mother would have needed for that secure attachment to form.

That would have meant attuning to you, on a moment-by-moment basis, to figure out what you needed. Especially in your pre-verbal years, this would have been tricky, because of course you couldn’t let her know whether you were too hot/cold, hungry, wet, bored, needed a nap, scared of the dog, dazzled by those bright lights, overstimulated from too much play, mad at your brother for stealing your favourite toy, or whatever else may have been going on in your little mind and body. As any parents out there know, learning to interpret what your baby’s noises, movements, body posture and facial expression means is no easy task!

But good-enough mums – and dads too, of course – are able to attune to their baby, learning their language before they have the power to express it with words. And when your caregivers were not able to attune in this way, I’m afraid it can be subtly but profoundly hurtful and cause lifelong problems. I call it a subtle ‘missing’, when your mother doesn’t really listen to you, is always a bit distracted or simply lacks this crucial parenting skill, probably because she never received it from her mother when she was little.

The impact of feeling unseen

Think about that: not feeling seen, heard, understood or validated over and over again, thousands of times throughout your childhood and adolescence, into your young adulthood and probably right up to this moment. One of my mentors called this ‘the air we breathe’ as children – not something bad that only happened rarely, but a lack of warmth, kindness, care or attention, happening all the time in your family.

So if you now struggle with low confidence or self-esteem, have negative self-beliefs about not being good enough, likeable or lovable, find intimate relationships baffling and unsatisfying, or feel like there’s a big hole in your chest that can never be filled, no matter how much love you get as an adult, this subtle but repetitive missing could be the reason.

If you are struggling, you might find my Insight Timer practice, Taking in the Good: IFS Meditation, helpful. This guided imagery practice will help you take in positive new feelings and nourishing beliefs that will help ease that feeling of not being enough, in some way. Repeated exercises like this, perhaps alongside the help of a skilled therapist, will start to undo the years of misattunement you experienced as a child, and so help you feel more confident and build a sense of inner peace, warmth and self-compassion, which you so deserve.

Love,

Dan ❤️

Why You May Have Experienced Trauma, Even if You Had a ‘Normal’ Childhood

Image by Jessica Voong

‘He didn’t see his childhood as unusual – it was the only one he had ever had.’ I read this line in a coffee shop earlier and it has really stayed with me. It was in a brilliant book, Why Therapy Works: Using Our Minds to Change Our Brains, by Louis Cozolino. It’s a bit dense, so probably more for the mental-health professionals reading this (or anyone else who enjoys dense psychology books!). But that line is so good – and speaks to something I see with my clients over and over again.

Because it doesn’t matter how bad your childhood was, what kinds of terrible things were happening – to you it’s normal, because that is all you know. Especially when you are young, before you have attended school, your house and family is your whole world. You might go to the park, or to other kids’ houses to play, but basically everything important that ever happens to you happens inside your family.

So even if your dad is drinking heavily, then shouting aggressively at your mum every night, that’s normal. Or if you grow up in poverty, feeling scared and hungry every day, that’s normal. If your parents clearly favour your sister over you and you know, in your bones, that they love her more than you, well that’s normal too.

Of course, it doesn’t mean that any of those things are OK, or right, or even normal by the standards of many other families. But it is normal for you, because that was all you knew then – and may still be normal for you now, until we work to reframe that story and help you realise it was neither good nor normal to grow up in that environment.

What children need to flourish

One of the central ideas in schema therapy is that of core needs. These are the developmental needs that all children have, whatever the culture or country they grow up in. These five needs are:

1. Love and a secure atachment

2. Safety and protection

3. Being valued as a unique human being

4. The ability to be spontaneous, play and express your emotions

5. Having boundaries and being taught right from wrong

It’s easy to see that the kids who are unlucky enough to grow up in traumatic, neglectful or abusive families are not getting these fundamental needs met. They probably don’t feel loved, safe or valued. Their emotions might be seen as ‘bad’ or ‘wrong’. And – a problem I see in many families today – they might have what we see as too much of a good thing. Meaning they are spoilt, allowed to say and do whatever they like without consequences. This is also a kind of neglect, because it produces unhappy children who will struggle to fit into society when they are older.

So, however ‘normal’ your childhood was, if these basic needs were not being met, it will have caused you problems as you became an adult. And it may well have been traumatic, even if it seemed normal on the outside, because being shouted at, bullied, devalued or ignored can all be traumatic for kids.

If any of this resonates for you, I’m very sorry you had a tough time growing up. But you may find this talk helpful, which I recorded for Insight Timer to help people tell a different, more compassionate story about their lives: The Story of You: How to Build Self-Compassion.

Sending you love and warm thoughts ❤️

Dan

The Story of You: What You Needed and (Probably) Didn’t Get as a Child

Image by Kelly Sikkema

So, you were born. And like all babies, you were beautiful, innocent and pure. You were like a little seed, packed full of energy, primed to flourish and grow. But to do that you needed certain nutrients like food, water, air and warmth, of course, but also things like love and safety, to feel cherished and valued for the little miracle that you were.

As well as all the basic ingredients you needed to nourish you day to day, what little you needed most was to be loved, held, whispered and sung to, told stories of who you were and how you came to be here. You needed to feel your mother’s skin on yours, your father’s strong arms as he rocked you back to sleep.

We call experiences like this attachment and it is so deep, so powerful, hard-wired into every human brain. You needed a safe, secure, reliable attachment first to mum – who carried you in her body for nine months, gave you life, fed and cared for you at your tiniest and most vulnerable – and then dad, siblings, grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, school friends and so on, out and out for the rest of your life.

Our first and deepest attachment

But for most of us this starts with mum, our first and most important caregiver, who should love us fiercely, viscerally, as if we were part of her, because we once were. And when this goes as it should, it feels wonderful – so good in fact that we call it ‘attachment bliss’ – being held and stroked and fed and soothed and cherished. And this creates, in us, a powerful feeling, in our bones, that we are good, lovable, worthy of kindness and respect.

So that’s how it should be – and for some lucky people, that’s how it is. But for many of us, it doesn’t work like this. Something goes wrong, somewhere – either very mildly wrong, or more seriously. And if it’s mild, and we have enough love, enough safety, enough nutrients to feed our growing brain and body, then we come out of it fairly intact. We may be anxious, or get depressed from time to time, but mostly we’re OK, able to do all the normal stuff of everyday life and be happy, enough, most of the time.

And for some of us – in fact, far too many of us – the things that went wrong were much worse than this. And they happened not just once, but over and over, throughout childhood, one bad thing or lots of bad things, one after another. And if this is you, you might know what these things were, or just have a vague inkling that all was not well. Either way, what I’m saying resonates somewhere inside and you’re thinking, ‘Yes, that’s how it was for me.’

If that’s the case, I am truly sorry, because I know that you will be left with wounds. And one of the deepest of those wounds is that you will think you deserved it in some way, that you were a bad person, or somehow dislikable or unlovable. Because that’s what children do – they make it about them, because it’s too scary and threatening to think that the people who were supposed to love and protect you, were in fact the ones who hurt you. That’s too much for a child’s brain to comprehend, so they go, ‘Well it can’t have been their fault, so it must have been mine. I’m bad. I’m naughty. I made all the bad things happen and deserved them.’

None of this is your fault

And here’s where I really need you to concentrate. Take in these words, because they may be the most important thing anyone has ever said to you. And that’s this: none of those bad things that happened were your fault. You didn’t do anything wrong. You were just that sweet, innocent, pure little baby who was born into a bad situation.

See you think you’re a bad person, but you’re not. You are a good person that bad things happened to.

That’s so important I’m going to say it again. You think you’re a bad person, but you’re not. You are a good person that bad things happened to.

And somewhere inside you is that sweet, innocent, lovable little boy or girl. They still live in your mind and body and nervous system, whether you know they are there or not. And they are the part of you that needs to hear this the most, because they hold all the memories of bad stuff and how it felt, and what they thought, and all the other stuff that goes with that.

‘I am not what happened to me. I am what I choose to become.’

Carl Jung

So let them know that they are not bad, or wrong, or naughty, or anything other than a beautiful little child, who deserves to be loved and cherished, and held, and made to feel good about themselves. Because that’s what we all want – it’s what we’re born for, really, to feel that from other people and to give it back to them. It’s why we’re all here.

I hope this helps you think a little differently about your life, about yourself, about why you struggle as you do. As ever, also know that these wounds can be healed, with enough time, work and loving, compassionate support.

And I will be here, every step of the way, giving you every ounce of knowledge, wisdom, guidance and support I possess.

Warm wishes,

Dan

PS I have recorded this as a talk for my InsightTimer Collection – click on the button below if you would like to listen (for free) now.

A Compassionate Response to the Crisis in Ukraine

Image by Mathias PR Reding

It’s heartbreaking to watch the crisis in Ukraine unfold, as innocent people are attacked by Russia’s fearsome military machine. This situation is also deeply disturbing for the majority of Russians, who are baffled and ashamed about their country invading a neighbour. Like the rest of the world, they understand that this aggression stems from the top, where their authoritarian leader, Vladimir Putin – who seems extremely unwell, psychologically – has dragged his country into one needless conflict after another. He is obsessed with re-establishing Russia as a global superpower, whatever the human cost.

My heart goes out to everyone affected by this war – the Ukrainian citizens, who are experiencing unimaginable suffering as their homes and families are attacked; those fighting and dying on both sides – they are all human and have people who love them, whether Ukrainian or Russian; and the refugees pouring out of Ukraine every day, desperately seeking safety for themselves and their children.

One of the hardest things at a time like this is the sense of helplessness, as we watch on from afar. It can seem as though we are completely powerless and that there is nothing we can do to help. But that’s not true. There is plenty we can do – and taking action is so important right now, because it will help you feel less helpless and overwhelmed.

Two types of compassion

In her book, Fierce Self-Compassion: How Women can Harness Kindness to Speak Up, Claim Their Power and Thrive, Kristin Neff distinguishes between two forms of self-compassion: tender and fierce. Tender self-compassion is the more familiar version, involving treating yourself with the kindness and care you would offer to a beloved partner, friend, family member or child. And we call need to offer ourselves this form of self-compassion right now, as after two years of Covid-related stress and anxiety, we don’t have much resilience or the psychological resources to handle this horrible conflict, with all the scary and upsetting media coverage we digest about it every day.

I think we can also extend this tender compassion outward, to people we know who are struggling with the news about Ukraine, comforting them or offering a hug when they are stressed or upset; donating money to some of the many charities that are helping people on the ground in Ukraine, or working with refugees pouring out of the country (I recommend UNICEF, which is helping Ukrainian children traumatised by this conflict – please donate to them using the button below); and helping refugees settle in our countries. Refugee Action and Global Giving are both excellent choices for your charitable donations.

Fierce compassion

This situation also calls for the other form of compassion: fierce compassion. As Kristin Neff explains, fierce compassion (whether for self or others) helps us say no, set limits and boundaries, use our anger to fight for what’s right, combat injustice and protect the vulnerable. We are all looking for our leaders to act with fierce compassion right now, with severe economic sanctions as long as Putin is in charge, supporting the people of Ukraine in every possible way to defend themselves and their democracy.

I also think we should all put as much pressure as we can on our leaders, through social media, petitions, contacting your MP and the Government as much as you can, so they are crystal clear about the anguish and outrage we all feel about this awful situation. If you’re in the UK and are not sure who your MP is or how to contact them, you can do so here.

Look after yourself too

Finally, make sure you take care of yourself. This crisis is incredibly stressful, of course primarily for people in Ukraine and their loved ones – it’s hard to imagine how much they are suffering right now. But it’s also stressful for all of us in Europe, watching on with anxiety about what this disturbed individual will do next.

So go easy on the news – we can stay informed about what’s going on without watching every awful video or reading all the details about what’s happening, day by day. This is especially true if you have a trauma history, because you may find this situation highly triggering, in many ways.

Sending love, solidarity and prayers for peace to the Ukrainian people.

And sending you warm thoughts, wherever you are in the world,

Dan

Why Bullying is so Traumatic for Kids (and Adults)

Image by Kuanish Reymbaev

I was badly bullied at school. It was one of the worst years of my life – the last year of primary school, which should have been a happy time but was anything but. For some reason I’m still not 100% clear about, I got held back a year while all my friends went on to secondary school. I was then dropped, gazelle-like, into the pride of hungry lions that were the kids in the year below.

And although I have always been big, I was a sensitive, easily-hurt kid – perfect prey for bullies. So this gang made my life hell, for a year. And this experience was deeply scarring for me. It stays with me to this day, despite a great deal of work in therapy (I am finally close to healing those wounds, but it has taken a long time and much hard work).

Why am I telling you all this? Because, as with many painful psychological experiences, I know what bullying feels like, from the inside (known as emotional empathy). This is very different from intellectually understanding it (cognitive empathy), from reading books and being taught on a therapy training.

Why bullying is so traumatic

What I most remember about this awful time is the feeling of helplessness, of powerlessness. Whatever I did, or tried to do, didn’t make any difference. I told my parents, eventually, but – although of course they tried their best to help, especially my mum – when they told the teachers, it just got worse.

If I tried avoiding the gang, they always found me. I couldn’t fight back, even if I had been that sort of kid, because there were five or six of them and one of me. And this horrible kind of helplessness, in the face of attack – physical, verbal, emotional – is what turns a bad experience into a traumatic one.

I guess the silver lining of these events, which happened almost 50 years ago, is that they have helped me both understand and in turn, help trauma survivors. It’s why I always tell my clients that I understand trauma, dysfunctional families, alcoholism, bullying, depression and so much more, because I lived through it all as a child.

It has also helped me see that, as a society, we underestimate just how traumatic bullying can be for kids. I am still affected by those experiences, several decades later. And so will you be, if it happened to you. Those memories – like any kind of trauma memory – need processing, with an effective trauma-informed therapy like schema therapy or internal family systems therapy (the one I am currently having).

If you experienced bullying as a child, please don’t minimise or ignore it. The little boy or girl inside you still bears the scars of those experiences, however long ago they were.

Bullying hurts adults too

For many people, their bullying comes not in childhood, but later life. An abusive partner, horrible boss or vindictive colleague can be extremely painful, however old you may be. Again, please don’t ignore or dismiss these experiences. If you’re stuck in an abusive relationship, charities like Refuge or Women’s Aid can help you escape it – and stay safe once you have left.

If the problem is at work, and you have an HR department, speak to them about it right away. They have a legal obligation to protect you and prevent bullying or abusive behaviour in the workplace. If you’re a member of a union, tell them – they will be able to help. And, finally, if all else fails, find a new job! Life is too short to spend every day in fear of being belittled, targeted or abused in any way.

A key part of my Heal Your Trauma project is cutting through the fog of ignorance and misinformation that exists around trauma. It’s a huge problem, affecting millions of people around the world. Many experiences can be traumatic for us. And we can always do something about it, including reading blogs like this one, finding support groups, good therapy, reading self-help books, speaking to friends and family. All of those things will help – so please don’t ignore your traumatic experiences.

Get help – you deserve it.

Warm wishes,

Dan