ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses links between trauma and identity development, tracing the effects of trauma on the developing child. We are shaped by how we are treated, first through the nonverbal channels of touch, sound, and sensation and then through the words that increasingly organize those sensations. Identity can be seen as an evolving life narrative that is learned in interaction with others, shaped by the categories imposed by cultural narratives. Because identity develops within the context of relationships, early childhood teachers have important opportunities to recognize the contexts in which their students’ difficulties have arisen and to help them rewrite their own life story in ways that invites greater self-respect and self-definition. From a psychoanalytic standpoint, most psychological difficulties can be seen in terms of development that has gone awry over the generations. From this perspective, teachers can play an important role in helping their students to develop a narrative in which their troubles make sense, so that they can begin to address whatever has been left unaddressed, and move forward in their lives from a starting place where their own feelings and experience are at the heart of the story.
