ABSTRACT
In the last decade neuroscience and developmental research have-provided convincing evidence about the impact of early experience on later development, and in particular of the impact of trauma and neglect on the developing brains of young children. Much has changed since the early days of psychoanalysis, when it was believed that traumatic early experiences, such as of sexual abuse, were repressed, leading to all manner of malevolent symptoms that were cured by helping people to remember the traumatic episodes. The human is born with literally billions of neurons, but at birth the connections between the neurons, neuronal pathways, and synaptic connections are not formed. Experience is filtered through ready-formed pathways, just as water will naturally flow down already formed channels. There is an opposite response by the nervous system to stress and trauma, an activation of what is called the parasympathetic nervous system.
