ABSTRACT
Traumatic experiences and events in early childhood have been historically considered as a problem associated to “specific traumas” such as sexual abuse, physical abuse, and negligence (Barudy, 1999). Yet approaching each of these problems as a single and isolated event does not represent the experience of children under high risk: a traumatic experience in these cases rarely presents itself as a single event (that is, a high-risk infant will most probably never just suffer only sexual abuse, or physical abuse, or negligence). Hence, a comprehensive model enables a better understanding of the disorganized and traumatic experience of thousands of infants who suffer (and have suffered) throughout their lives. As Chu and Lieberman have suggested (2010): “The ‘single‘ event approach is a huge limitation to our understanding (of trauma) since it focuses only on acute traumas and fails to contextualize these events in a wider spectrum of chronic, complex and/or multiple traumas” (p. 472).
