ABSTRACT
Dr. Bruce Perry’s Child Trauma Academy in Houston, Texas, is dedicated to research and education on child maltreatment, and its training materials on state-dependent learning are recommended for clinicians and caregivers. Perry’s training materials and scientific writings, including those with E. Hambrick and R. Pollard, illustrate how a child’s brain moves from higher order functioning to lower order during times of increased stress or when triggered by a trauma reminder. This chapter discusses earlier the need for traumatized children to be given control over as many choices as possible. The goal or purpose of their behavior is to remain safe. Some of their emotions and behaviors are automatic neurobiological responses, triggered by things in their world that remind them of past abuse. The same child now in preschool might use sensorimotor behavior as a coping resource under stress—hitting, banging, throwing, and pounding while screaming loudly.
