ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the ways in which brain structure and function responds and adapts to traumatic experience and in turn affects children's functioning and relationships. It reviews what research and theory suggests are the likely impacts of experience, relationships and trauma on the development and functioning of the brain. Complex trauma treatment has focused on treating the impact of early trauma on the emotional, relational, cognitive and social functioning of individuals impacted by trauma. As the field of neurobiology advances, complex trauma treatment provides with fascinating insight into brain development, brain function and neuroplasticity. Early trauma and disrupted early attachment relationships impact not just the development of parts of the brain, but also the mechanisms which connect the parts of the brain into an integrated whole. Long before children can encode their experiences into narrative memory, their experiences influence the programming of their brain's responses to environmental stimuli.
