Examining the Relationships Between Resilience, Stress Immunity, and Childhood Emotional Neglect
Have you ever wondered why some people are more impacted by negative events than others? Or why do some people seem to bounce back after significant traumatic experiences while others suffer for years or over the course of a lifetime from the impacts of trauma?
Kimberly Keiser recently presented a poster at the Association for Psychological Science on this topic titled “Resilience Moderates the Relationship Between Childhood Emotional Neglect and Stress Immunity.”
The research specifically looked at a gap in the literature with regard to the type of childhood maltreatment and the role of resilience in the later development of psychological difficulties and psychopathology.
Resilience and stress immunity are factors that contribute to the understanding of this complex psychobiological dynamic.
The American Psychological Association defines resilience as "the process and outcome of successfully adapting to difficult or challenging life experiences, especially through mental, emotional, and behavioral flexibility and adjustment to external and internal demands." Psychological science has not yet determined why some individuals have a greater capacity for resilience but has found that resilience is a capacity that can be developed.
Stress immunity is displayed by not having typical negative reactions to stressful or traumatic events. Stress immunity can be psychological or neurobiological.
Research has simultaneously shown that there are long-lasting negative consequences of childhood maltreatment on biological systems and that some individuals who display resilience after childhood maltreatment have been found to have adaptive neurobiological or immune responses as a result of trauma in childhood.
Trauma Research in Action
Individuals can be abused or neglected in childhood in a number of ways, and research is consistently looking at how different forms of abuse have varying long-term impacts on adult mental and physical health.
Through exploring the five types of childhood maltreatment — physical abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, physical neglect, and emotional neglect — resilience was the strongest predictor of stress immunity, and resilience moderates the relationship between emotional neglect and stress immunity.
In other words, an individual's ability to adapt to childhood emotional neglect specifically led to fewer negative health outcomes. One of the implications of this research is that the consequences of different forms of childhood maltreatment depend on each person's vulnerabilities and capacities for resilience.
Additionally, fostering resilience through therapeutic interventions for those who have experienced childhood maltreatment is both important in general and an important focus for future research.
Continued Research and Treatment
To stay up to date on Kimberly's future research and publications, view her profile on ResearchGate.
Contact us to learn more about how trauma therapy can help you overcome the impacts of negative childhood experiences, abuse, and neglect. Our certified trauma counselors focus on using empirically-based psychotherapeutic interventions to address post-traumatic stress, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and other negative health outcomes resulting from childhood maltreatment.