Evidence for a sensitive period in the effects of early life stress on hippocampal volume

Exposure to stress has been causally linked to changes in hippocampal volume (HV). Given that the hippocampus undergoes rapid changes in the first years of life, stressful experiences during this period may be particularly important in understanding individual differences in the development of the hippocampus. One hundred seventy‐eight early adolescents (ages 9–13 years; 43% male) were interviewed regarding exposure to and age of onset of experiences of stress; the severity of each stressful event was rated by an objective panel. All participants underwent structural magnetic resonance imaging, from which HVs were automatically segmented. Without considering the age of onset for stressful experiences, there was a small but statistically significant negative association of stress severity with bilateral HV. When considering the age of onset, there was a moderate and significant negative association between stress severity during early childhood (through 5 years of age) and HV; there was no association between stress severity during later childhood (age 6 years and older) and HV. We provide evidence of a sensitive period through 5 years of age for the effects of life stress on HV in adolescence. It will be important in future research to elucidate how reduced HV stemming from early life stress may contribute to stress‐related health outcomes.     

Attachment and the processing of social information across the life span: theory and evidence

Researchers have used J. Bowlby's (1969/1982, 1973, 1980, 1988) attachment theory frequently as a basis for examining whether experiences in close personal relationships relate to the processing of social information across childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. We present an integrative life-span-encompassing theoretical model to explain the patterns of results that have emerged from these studies. The central proposition is that individuals who possess secure experience-based internal working models of attachment will process--in a relatively open manner--a broad range of positive and negative attachment-relevant social information. Moreover, secure individuals will draw on their positive attachment-related knowledge to process this information in a positively biased schematic way. In contrast, individuals who possess insecure internal working models of attachment will process attachment-relevant social information in one of two ways, depending on whether the information could cause the individual psychological pain. If processing the information is likely to lead to psychological pain, insecure individuals will defensively exclude this information from further processing. If, however, the information is unlikely to lead to psychological pain, then insecure individuals will process this information in a negatively biased schematic fashion that is congruent with their negative attachment-related experiences. In a comprehensive literature review, we describe studies that illustrate these patterns of attachment-related information processing from childhood to adulthood. This review focuses on studies that have examined specific components (e.g., attention and memory) and broader aspects (e.g., attributions) of social information processing. We also provide general conclusions and suggestions for future research.     

Personal Images of the Sacred

Jung’s works on religion focus on images of the divine, which people experience in various ways. Here, we consider a variety of such numinous experiences, ranging from childhood dreams to experiences of Christian saints and of 20th-century cult leaders, all of which can be described as images of God in the human psyche.     

Emotional reactions and regulatory responses to negative and positive events: Associations with attachment and gender

In two studies, we examined inter-individual variability in responses to both negative and positive events. In the first study, participants (119 college students) reported on negative and positive events from their own lives. The second was an experiment in which participants (133 college students) were given either negative or positive feedback about their personality. With negative events, more insecure individuals, especially anxiously attached, evidenced more intense negative emotional reactions and greater processing of (i.e., ruminating on) negative experiences. With positive events, securely attached individuals and less anxiously attached engaged in greater processing of positive experiences (maximized), whereas more insecure individuals tended to minimize positive experiences. Gender differences for emotion regulation were moderated by either attachment or event type. Findings for negative events generally coincide with prior research, and those for positive events provide new evidence that attachment style could affect how people react to positive events and emotions.     

Childhood Maltreatment and its Effect on Parenting among High-Risk Parents

Research evidence indicates that a childhood history of maltreatment affects parental behaviors in adulthood. The aim of the study was to investigate the predictors for parental behaviors among individuals who reported a history of maltreatment. The current study investigated whether attachment styles, emotional regulation and cognitive appraisals of parenting predicted parental behaviors (positive vs. negative). The study also investigated the differential effects of abuse experiences in childhood (physical, sexual, emotional, and neglect) on parental behaviors. The participants were 213 high-risk Jewish and Arab parents of children aged six and under. Participants completed five self-report questionnaires assessing parental behaviors, childhood experiences of abuse and neglect, attachment styles, emotional regulation, and cognitive appraisal of parenthood. The regression analyses revealed that personal attributes such as ethnicity, childhood experience of emotional abuse/neglect, emotional regulation, and appraisal of parenting, predict negative parental behavior. Anxious attachment and childhood emotional abuse and neglect moderated the impact of parenthood appraisal on parenting behaviors. Although physical and sexual abuse had the highest impact on insecure attachment, emotional abuse/neglect had higher predictive power for non-positive parenting. Clinical interventions for improving the capacity for emotional regulation and parent-child relational skills are suggested.     

Sensory-processing sensitivity moderates the association between childhood experiences and adult life satisfaction

There are few studies testing the differential susceptibility hypothesis (DSH: hypothesizing that some individuals are more responsive to both positive and negative experiences) with adult personality traits. The current study examined the DSH by investigating the moderating effect of sensory-processing sensitivity (SPS) on childhood experiences and life satisfaction. A total of 185 adults completed measures of SPS, positive/negative childhood experiences and life satisfaction. SPS did moderate the association between childhood experiences and life satisfaction. Simple slopes analysis compared those reporting high and low SPS (+/− 1 SD) and revealed that the difference was observed only for those who reported negative childhood experiences; with the high SPS group reporting lower life satisfaction. There was no difference observed in those reporting positive childhood experiences, which supported a diathesis-stress model rather than the DSH.     

Is Character Fate,or Is There Hope to Change My Personality Yet?

Different perspectives on personality development propose a range of possible degrees to which traits are free to change, from hardly at all to very much. This essay reviews the empirical evidence on just how consistent and changeable personality traits are across the life course. To gain a thorough perspective on personality trait development, we review developmental studies that focus on three different types of change: rank‐order consistency, mean level change, and individual level change. Starting in late childhood, personality traits exhibit modest levels of rank‐order consistency that increase with age. In addition personality traits show mean level changes, especially in young adulthood, that are consistent with the idea of increasing maturity. Finally, despite these general trends in personality continuity and change, there is evidence that individuals may change in ways that contradict general trends and that these individual differences in change are related to life experiences.     

Professional relationships in dangerous times: C. G. Jung and the Society for Psychotherapy

Relying in part on previously unpublished documents of the 1930s, this paper(1) describes the origins and mission of the General Medical Society for Psychotherapy, both as it existed before Hitler's rise to power and as it was transformed afterward. Jung accepted the Society's presidency in 1933-34, on condition that it be restructured as an international, politically neutral organization, free from the laws of Gleichschaltung (Nazi conformity). The paper also contains a close study of Jung's collaboration with one interesting German colleague, Walter Cimbal. Cimbal, a neurologist, was briefly a member of the Nazi Party and, judging from his early letters to Jung, a Hitler enthusiast. Yet he also seems to have tried, together with Jung, to alleviate the difficulties of German Jewish colleagues whose lives were disrupted by the Hitler revolution. The paper includes translated passages from Cimbal's previously unpublished letters from 1933-36 and the post-war years. It also includes a first-person account by Wladimir Rosenbaum, the Zurich lawyer who assisted Jung in 1934, when Jung tried to mitigate the impact of anti-Jewish laws on his German Jewish colleagues. In the primary materials of this period one discovers more evidence of moral shadow-and also less-than is sometimes assumed.     

Parenting among mothers exposed to ongoing military conflict in childhood: An exploratory study

Mothers living in areas exposed to ongoing military conflict are at higher risk for psychological difficulties, such as posttraumatic stress disorder, than those not living in such areas. The aim of this two-part exploratory study was twofold. The first aim was to examine differences between mothers who grew up under ongoing military conflict in childhood and mothers who did not grow up in affected areas in terms of their levels of differentiation of self and parental self-efficacy (PSE). The second aim was to identify and describe the parenting experiences of mothers who were exposed to military conflict in childhood. In Part 1 of the study, the sample included 120 mothers (half of whom reported on being exposed to ongoing military conflict in childhood). Findings showed that mothers exposed to ongoing military conflict in childhood reported lower levels of differentiation of self and PSE than their counterparts. In Part 2, 10 mothers who were exposed to ongoing military conflict as children were interviewed about their experience as parents and their PSE. Results indicated that the mothers felt their childhood experiences affected their parenting and PSE negatively, resulting in anxiety, difficulty dealing with stress and sometimes posttraumatic symptoms as well as parental patterns of overprotectiveness, separation anxiety and intergenerational transmission of anxiety. The results highlight the consequences of exposure to ongoing military conflict during childhood on levels of differentiation of self and parenting practices.     

Resilience concepts and findings: implications for family therapy

Resilience is a term used to describe relative resistance to psychosocial risk experiences. There is abundant evidence that there is enormous variation in children's responses to such experiences but research to determine the processes underlying the variations needs to take account of several crucial methodological issues. The findings emphasize that multiple risk and protective factors are involved; that children vary in their vulnerability to psychosocial stress and adversity as a result of both genetic and environmental influences; that family-wide experiences tend to impinge on individual children in quite different ways; that the reduction of negative, and increase of positive, chain reactions influences the extent to which the effects of adversity persist over time; that new experiences which open up opportunities can provide beneficial 'turning- point' effects; that although positive experiences in themselves do not exert much of a protective effect, they can be helpful if they serve to neutralize some risk factors; and that the cognitive and affective processing of experiences is likely to influence whether or not resilience develops. The implications of these findings for family therapy are considered in terms of the need for therapists to look carefully at the ways in which different risk factors interact; to assess and take account of individual differences in susceptibility; to consider the extent to which risk factors impinge on the individual and, in that connection, to note the importance of patterns of social interaction outside as well as inside the family; to appreciate the role of both the peer group and individual characteristics in the development of negative and positive chain reactions; and to pay attention to the ways in which individuals process their experiences.     

MATERNAL TRAUMA AFFECTS PRENATAL MENTAL HEALTH AND INFANT STRESS REGULATION AMONG PALESTINIAN DYADS

We examined how diverse and cumulated traumatic experiences predicted maternal prenatal mental health and infant stress regulation in war conditions and whether maternal mental health mediated the association between trauma and infant stress regulation. Participants were 511 Palestinian mothers from the Gaza Strip who reported exposure to current war trauma (WT), past childhood emotional (CEA) and physical abuse, socioeconomic status (SES), prenatal mental health problems (posttraumatic stress disorder and depression symptoms), and perceived stress during their secondtrimester of pregnancy as well as infant stress regulation at 4 months. While all trauma types were associated with high levels of prenatal symptoms, CEA had the most wide‐ranging effects and was uniquely associated with depression symptoms. Concerning infant stress regulation, mothers’ CEA predicted negative affectivity, but only among mothers with low WT. Against hypothesis, the effects of maternal trauma on infant stress regulation were not mediated by mental health symptoms. Mothers’ higher SES was associated with better infant stress regulation whereas infant prematurity and male sex predisposed for difficulties. Our findings suggest that maternal childhood abuse, especially CEA, should be a central treatment target among war‐exposed families. Cumulated psychosocial stressors might increase the risk for transgenerational problems.     

Instrumental learning and cognitive flexibility processes are impaired in children exposed to early life stress

Children who experience severe early life stress show persistent deficits in many aspects of cognitive and social adaptation. Early stress might be associated with these broad changes in functioning because it impairs general learning mechanisms. To explore this possibility, we examined whether individuals who experienced abusive caregiving in childhood had difficulties with instrumental learning and/or cognitive flexibility as adolescents. Fifty‐three 14–17‐year‐old adolescents (31 exposed to high levels of childhood stress, 22 control) completed an fMRI task that required them to first learn associations in the environment and then update those pairings. Adolescents with histories of early life stress eventually learned to pair stimuli with both positive and negative outcomes, but did so more slowly than their peers. Furthermore, these stress‐exposed adolescents showed markedly impaired cognitive flexibility; they were less able than their peers to update those pairings when the contingencies changed. These learning problems were reflected in abnormal activity in learning‐ and attention‐related brain circuitry. Both altered patterns of learning and neural activation were associated with the severity of lifetime stress that the adolescents had experienced. Taken together, the results of this experiment suggest that basic learning processes are impaired in adolescents exposed to early life stress. These general learning mechanisms may help explain the emergence of social problems observed in these individuals.     

Depressive and Anxious Symptomatology Moderate the Relationship Between Childhood Emotional Abuse Severity and Attentional Bias on the Modified Stroop Task

Research has demonstrated that the impact of childhood abuse often outlasts the initial abuse experiences, paving the way for a myriad of psychological difficulties in adulthood. Attentional bias might serve as a pathway from childhood abuse to negative outcomes associated with such experiences. The primary aim of the study was to investigate the impact of childhood emotional abuse (CEA) experiences on the presence of attentional bias in a sample of college women by comparing performance on a modified Stroop task between CEA survivors (n = 28) and a nonabused control group (n = 31). Results suggest that for CEA survivors, psychological symptoms moderated the relationship between CEA severity and attentional bias to specific word types. Results underscore the importance in continued exploration of the relationship among childhood emotional abuse, attentional bias, and concurrent psychopathology. Results also suggest that modification of attentional biases, via cognitive bias modification procedures, could help mitigate the impact of childhood abuse experiences on psychological well-being in adult survivors.     

Hexagram 4 of the I Ching: Analytical Psychology and Jung's Developmental Process

Theories, as well as history itself, are subject to their archetypal underpinnings, as well as to synchronicity, cyclic and sequential change. Some of Jung's early life experiences, his theories, and their permutations in his followers are considered in relation to Hexagram 4 of the I-Ching.
Jung's infantile wounds, his lack of adequately mirroring and metabolizing parents gave rise to a Puer Aeternus complex. This complex is explored as it is brought out through the lines of Hexagram 4 in the I-Ching. The complex is considered as pertinent to some problematical parts of Jung's theory and its impact on analytic history and behavior. Jung's genius and adaptive healing use of the building blocks of this complex are also discussed.
It is proposed that the descendants of Freud and Jung internalize the problems of their forefathers in much the same way that patients internalize the problems of their parents. Particular theories suggest similar personal affinities (and even histories) in their followers. Jung's childhood problems are considered for the way they may reverberate in Jungian practice today.     

Pedophilia,Height, and the Magnitude of the Association: A Research Note

Physical height is a manifestation of in utero and childhood conditions, and pedophilic individuals have generally been reported to be of lesser height. Jung, Klaver, and Pham (2014), however, report findings that fail to support an association between pedophilia and height. In the present note, we examine the methodology and findings of Jung et al. To estimate the magnitude of the pedophilia–height association, we conducted a meta-analysis of the published literature and found a significant effect size. Our findings suggest pedophiles may experience conditions during in utero and childhood development that are capable of influencing their physical development.     

Family emotion expressivity,emotion regulation,and the link to psychopathology: Examination across race

Research has established links between parental emotion socialization behaviours and youth emotional and psychological outcomes; however, no study has simultaneously compared these relations for White, Black, and Asian individuals. In this study, emerging adults identifying as White (n= 61), Black (n= 51), or Asian (n= 56) retrospectively reported on parents’ emotion socialization behaviours during childhood, existing emotion regulation (ER) skills, and current psychopathology symptoms. Asian participants reported fewer positive displays of emotions in their families during childhood than White and Black participants. Despite this difference, low expression of positive emotions in families during childhood did not relate to negative outcomes for Asian participants but was linked for White and Black participants. Overall, Asian participants reported more difficulties with ER than Black or White participants, and relations between ER difficulties and psychopathology varied by racial group. The findings emphasize the need to consider race when conducting research on emotion functioning with families and highlight emotion dysregulation as a potential treatment target for White, Black, and Asian individuals.     

Vulnerability to depression: cognitive reactivity and parental bonding in high-risk individuals

Although various conceptual proposals have suggested that disruptions in childhood bonding processes may be linked to the origins of these cognitive structures, little research has tested these proposals. This study assessed the information processing of vulnerable individuals and its relationship to childhood bonding. Formerly depressed (vulnerable) and never depressed (nonvulnerable) individuals participated in a mood induction task followed by an attentional allocation task. Results indicated that vulnerable individuals uniquely diverted attention toward negative stimuli when they were in a negative mood. Furthermore, level of maternal caring was found to be associated with performance on this task for vulnerable individuals in this mood state. These data support the idea that cognitive variables form a pathway between troublesome parental-child/adolescent interactions and depression.     

Catechol-O-methyltransferase Val158Met genotype affects neural correlates of aversive stimuli processing

It was previously shown that variation of the catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) gene modulates brain activity during the processing of stimuli with negative valence, but not for pleasant stimuli. Here, we tested whether the COMT genotype also modulates the electrophysiological correlates of emotional processing and explored whether the environmental factor of life stress influences this effect. Using the early posterior negativity (EPN) paradigm, event-related brain potentials were measured in 81 healthy individuals during the processing of pictures that evoked emotions of positive and negative valence. As was hypothesized, the COMT genotype affected the EPN amplitudes for unpleasant stimuli, but not for pleasant ones. Specifically, Met/Met carriers respond more sensitively to unpleasant stimuli, as compared with Val/Val carriers. We did not find evidence that life stress moderates the effect of the COMT genotype on emotional stimuli processing.     

Preliminary Examination of the Relationship Between Anxiety Disorders in Adults and Self-Reported History of Teasing or Bullying Experiences

This preliminary study examined the relationship between anxiety disorders and self-reported history of teasing or bullying experiences, comparing individuals with social phobia, obsessive compulsive disorder, and panic disorder with or without agoraphobia. Given that aversive conditioning experiences, such as severe teasing, have been proposed to play a role in the development of social phobia and that the core feature of social phobia is a fear of social situations in which a person may be embarrassed or humiliated, we hypothesized that the social phobia group would have a higher rate of self-reported teasing history than would the obsessive compulsive disorder or panic disorder groups. Consistent with this hypothesis, a relationship between reported history of teasing and diagnosis was found. A significantly greater percentage of participants in the social phobia group (92%) reported a history of severe teasing experiences compared with the obsessive compulsive disorder (50%) and panic disorder (35%) groups. History of teasing experiences was also significantly related to an earlier age of onset for all 3 anxiety disorders, and to a greater number of self-reported additional problems in childhood. These findings suggest further directions for research in this area and highlight the significant link between perceptions of teasing in childhood and social phobia.