ABSTRACT
Child abuse and neglect can result in many negative outcomes like mental health disorders, behavioral disorders, and disrupted relationships. Children can suffer attachment disorders, depression, anxiety, posttraumatic stress disorder, aggression, anger, emotional disturbances, and other negative consequences of maltreatment. Adults who were abused as children can suffer a host of physical and psychological problems. Heart disease, cancer, suicidality, depression, anxiety, panic, and posttraumatic stress are all linked to being abused or neglected as a child. Child maltreatment also results in neuropsychological changes in the hypo-pituitary-adrenal axis, amygdala, and corpus collosum. Additionally, child maltreatment takes a socioeconomic toll and can perpetuate further violence. This chapter discusses the short-term and long-term effects of child maltreatment, the Adverse Childhood Experiences study, the neuropsychological effects of trauma, complex trauma and developmental trauma disorders, Terr’s Type 1 and Type 2 traumas, and the cycle of violence theory.
