Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 5, No. 6, 2006, Page 10
other data may be tuned out. In the case of child sexual abuse, for example, NE may cause
the child to focus on only a part of the event, entering it into long-term memory, but losing
other information that might be important. Consequently, the smell of semen might be
easily recalled along with an associated feeling of disgust, but the abuser himself may have
been excluded from conscious awareness. As an adult, then, the victim/survivor might feel
nauseous during a sexual encounter with an appropriate partner (as in our previous
example) and lose all enjoyment that sexual activity might otherwise bring. In other words,
knowledge of the abuser may be dissociated from the rest of the event, a common
characteristic of PTSD. A former client of mine told me how she had focused on a doll in her
room while her father was sexually violating her. She is now phobically avoidant of dolls but
has little (explicit) memory of the abuse. The problem with dissociated material is that it
doesn‘t remain unconscious it leaks out in many of the symptoms characteristic of PTSD:
nightmares, flashbacks, autonomic hyperarousal, intrusive memories, and somatic
complaints.
Additionally, people who have been sexually abused are prone to the oft-noted clinical
phenomenon of revictimization that is, people who have been abused as children too often
become subsequent victims of rape or domestic violence. Prone to using dissociation as a
way of coping with stress, they may tune out cues that alert other people to potential
danger. Another theory proposed to explain this phenomenon is that, because the stress
response is less sensitive in many cases, the person does not pick up the danger signals
that would alert others to leave. Potentially dangerous situations might feel familiar and not
raise concern for the formerly abused person.
Attachment
Another aspect of brain development that is important to understand in looking at the
psychobiology of trauma has to do with the connections between the lower, more primitive
brain regions (limbic and reptilian areas) and the higher cortical regions (neo-cortex, frontal
lobes) that enable us to think, reason, organize, judge, and so on. A well-functioning brain
has strong connections up and down so that people can integrate thinking and feeling.
Otherwise, they either ―live in their heads,‖ as we say, where they are cut off from their
feelings, or, on the flip side, they are flooded with affect and cannot reason. Neither
situation is desirable.
A key factor in how these synaptic connections form and how strong they are appears to be
the relationship between the primary caregiver, usually the mother, and the infant (Schore,
1994). When the mother is attuned to the infant‘s cues and able to respond sensitively,
contingently,ii and in a timely fashion to her child, a proliferation of dendritic growth in the
child‘s right brain connects these lower and higher cortical regions. Additionally, the ―good-
enough mother‖ (Winnicott, 1965) acts as a psychobiological regulator, calming and
soothing the child when s/he is distressed and enlivening her/him when s/he is bored or
dissociated (Schore, 1994). The child then develops a secure attachment to the mother.
Eventually, the baby will be able to internalize these functions and become able to regulate
his/her own affect. But if these functions are lacking in the primary caregiver, they will have
serious consequences for the child. Michael Meaney (2001) at McGill University
demonstrated that when baby rats were licked and groomed a lot they were less anxious
and fearful as adults that is, they were able to be calm in the face of stress. Attentive
maternal behaviors such as licking predicted calm nervous systems, as well as how
nurturing the pups would be to their own offspring. Thus, we see biological underpinnings of
the intergenerational transmission of maternal behavior and affect regulation.
Although it is never clear how generalizable animal research is to human behavior, studies
from the field of attachment appear to confirm these findings. For instance, EEGs have
shown that the human infants of depressed mothers exhibited excessive right frontal lobe
other data may be tuned out. In the case of child sexual abuse, for example, NE may cause
the child to focus on only a part of the event, entering it into long-term memory, but losing
other information that might be important. Consequently, the smell of semen might be
easily recalled along with an associated feeling of disgust, but the abuser himself may have
been excluded from conscious awareness. As an adult, then, the victim/survivor might feel
nauseous during a sexual encounter with an appropriate partner (as in our previous
example) and lose all enjoyment that sexual activity might otherwise bring. In other words,
knowledge of the abuser may be dissociated from the rest of the event, a common
characteristic of PTSD. A former client of mine told me how she had focused on a doll in her
room while her father was sexually violating her. She is now phobically avoidant of dolls but
has little (explicit) memory of the abuse. The problem with dissociated material is that it
doesn‘t remain unconscious it leaks out in many of the symptoms characteristic of PTSD:
nightmares, flashbacks, autonomic hyperarousal, intrusive memories, and somatic
complaints.
Additionally, people who have been sexually abused are prone to the oft-noted clinical
phenomenon of revictimization that is, people who have been abused as children too often
become subsequent victims of rape or domestic violence. Prone to using dissociation as a
way of coping with stress, they may tune out cues that alert other people to potential
danger. Another theory proposed to explain this phenomenon is that, because the stress
response is less sensitive in many cases, the person does not pick up the danger signals
that would alert others to leave. Potentially dangerous situations might feel familiar and not
raise concern for the formerly abused person.
Attachment
Another aspect of brain development that is important to understand in looking at the
psychobiology of trauma has to do with the connections between the lower, more primitive
brain regions (limbic and reptilian areas) and the higher cortical regions (neo-cortex, frontal
lobes) that enable us to think, reason, organize, judge, and so on. A well-functioning brain
has strong connections up and down so that people can integrate thinking and feeling.
Otherwise, they either ―live in their heads,‖ as we say, where they are cut off from their
feelings, or, on the flip side, they are flooded with affect and cannot reason. Neither
situation is desirable.
A key factor in how these synaptic connections form and how strong they are appears to be
the relationship between the primary caregiver, usually the mother, and the infant (Schore,
1994). When the mother is attuned to the infant‘s cues and able to respond sensitively,
contingently,ii and in a timely fashion to her child, a proliferation of dendritic growth in the
child‘s right brain connects these lower and higher cortical regions. Additionally, the ―good-
enough mother‖ (Winnicott, 1965) acts as a psychobiological regulator, calming and
soothing the child when s/he is distressed and enlivening her/him when s/he is bored or
dissociated (Schore, 1994). The child then develops a secure attachment to the mother.
Eventually, the baby will be able to internalize these functions and become able to regulate
his/her own affect. But if these functions are lacking in the primary caregiver, they will have
serious consequences for the child. Michael Meaney (2001) at McGill University
demonstrated that when baby rats were licked and groomed a lot they were less anxious
and fearful as adults that is, they were able to be calm in the face of stress. Attentive
maternal behaviors such as licking predicted calm nervous systems, as well as how
nurturing the pups would be to their own offspring. Thus, we see biological underpinnings of
the intergenerational transmission of maternal behavior and affect regulation.
Although it is never clear how generalizable animal research is to human behavior, studies
from the field of attachment appear to confirm these findings. For instance, EEGs have
shown that the human infants of depressed mothers exhibited excessive right frontal lobe
