Especially when the trauma involes a caretaker. Parents are like a child's image of god, and for one to turn against the child is devastating.
At the same time not having any definitive sign pointing to parents being the cause of behavioral issues later in life and reluctance to talk about family issues is a reason why the effects of this kind childhood trauma occur and nobody realizes or talks about it. That was certainly the case for me for far too long. I framed my issues myself in terms of medical disorders, not an upbringing that nobody should have to suffer through, largely because of the messages society gave me when I was younger and more impressionable. One is not always preventable, but there is no good reason the other should ever have to happen.
I'm saying this to offer an honest counterpoint to your anecdote. I don't think you meant to imply that ADHD is entirely due to trauma, but in fairness to parents it's probably worth entertaining the idea that some kids are just born that way.
I think ADHD is something you are born with, but there are many other things that can cause similar difficulties, including trauma. And as the linked article mentions, neurodivergent children are more likely to have parents who suffer from similar difficulties, which may increase their chance of suffering some sort of childhood trauma.
The instinctive behavior (on average) of girls seems to be more compatible with living in boxes and following ostensibly (from the child’s perspective) arbitrary rules.
The boy could have a very different experience from the girl by running into disproportionately more <behavioral correction>, and however healthy <behavioral correction> is in the family system (and wherever else they are exposed to) could determine whether the child more exposed to it has issues while the child less exposed to it wouldn’t, despite living in the same environment and being treated the same relative to their actual behaviors.
I’m not asserting that this has happened in your case, by the way, your account of the situation just doesn’t rule it out. I wonder if you’ve considered this?
I have an ADHD diagnosis. The only particularly traumatic thing in my childhood was my parents getting divorced when I was a teenager because my mother had an affair. I already had some symptoms of it before that happened. Prior to that, my parents might not have been the best parents you could possibly have, but they didn’t do anything that would merit the label “severe childhood trauma”
You need a trusted therapist to guide you into exposing what the subconscious mind is holding onto from infancy. It is subtle, deep, difficult, rewarding work. But I do think people discount trauma because it sounds scarier than "someone snapped at me in frustration as an infant for expressing some emotion and I learned to disconnect from myself."
This sounds like a great way to implant false memories
The therapeutic relief comes simply from listening to your gut/subconscious and feeling the emotions that that brings up. Being a loving friend and parent to that part of yourself. You can do that effectively without pretending that you can know if the impressions are literally true or if that message your getting is simply the best way for it to express the emotions it's holding onto.
Again, you can maintain your integrity while being empathic and loving and listening to the message.
Many psychologists who belong to different schools of thought – e.g. CBT, positive psychology – don't agree those practices are helpful and don't agree with their theoretical underpinnings
There is a lack of high quality empirical evidence for both the safety and efficacy of the kinds of practices you advocate, and also for the theories which motivate them. By contrast, more mainstream approaches such as CBT have significantly better empirical support
Every person with headache I met had painkillers.
Therefore their pain is caused by painkillers.
Daft.
When I search for 'bidirectional causality' I get a lot of scientific results. Are those all wrong?
> For most people with ADHD, many genetic and environmental risk factors accumulate to cause the disorder.
i.e., for most people, there is no singular cause.
To state the question correctly, is to imply the answer. Declaring all events that subjectively motivate a mental health visit as “trauma” is to allow private realities and have the patient determine the standard of care. Factually, we all know that if someone insists on holding onto a minor slight for an extended time, this is rarely about the event itself. The mental health community got waaaayyyy off track with this radical expansion of the concept of trauma.