ABSTRACT
The past swirls and reverberates through children’s experiences, shaping their present and influencing their future. Attuned, supportive, safe, and reliable early relationships create opportunities for children to learn, adapt, and connect as they grow. Young children develop to believe in themselves and those around them. However, when these relationships are experienced as abusive, violent, and disruptive, they are forced into developing self-protective states that shut them off from others, making them more resistant to change, and locking them into behavioural routines which repeat the very strategies they have used to survive the danger that has permeated their lives (Perry, 2002; Ogden et al., 2006; Baylin and Hughes, 2017).
