Complex Trauma is special kind of trauma which is normally the result of cumulative or ongoing experiences of neglect or abuse, including emotional abuse. When these experiences occur in childhood they have an affect on the child’s development, changing their developmental trajectory and influencing their ability to manage emotion and respond to stress.
The Death of a Thousand Cuts
Complex trauma arises from chronic or cumulative experiences of neglect, emotional abuse, or relational threat—often beginning in early childhood and continuing over a prolonged period. These experiences shape a child’s developmental trajectory, influencing the capacity to regulate emotion, form secure attachments, and respond to stress.
When many people think of “trauma,” they imagine a single catastrophic event—an accident, assault, or natural disaster. Complex trauma is different. It is the psychological equivalent of a slow erosion: ongoing interactions that undermine stability, overwhelm the developing brain, and leave behind a vulnerability to anxiety, shame, dissociation, or chronic emotional distress.
As Bessel van der Kolk writes:
“Chronic trauma interferes with neurobiological development and the capacity to integrate sensory, emotional and cognitive information into a cohesive whole. Developmental trauma sets the stage for unfocused responses to subsequent stress leading to dramatic increases in the use of medical, correctional, social and mental health services.”
How Complex Trauma Develops
Complex trauma typically emerges through relational experiences occurring during sensitive developmental periods—particularly between birth and age three. During this time, the brain is rapidly organising itself around caregiving experiences, attachment signals, and emotional communication.
Early Emotional Development and the Brain
In infancy and early childhood, the brain relies heavily on the caregiving environment to form pathways involved in regulation, stress response, and emotional understanding. Experiences of misattunement, fear, emotional neglect, or inconsistent caregiving shape the architecture of these pathways.
Although the brain remains plastic into adulthood, the structures and functions laid down during this early period influence how we regulate emotion and process threat across the lifespan.
Attachment, Shame, and Internal Working Models
Much of what “goes wrong” in complex trauma has to do with attachment. The attachment relationship teaches a child how to be with others, how to interpret emotional signals, and how to understand themselves in the world.
Healthy attachment fosters a coherent sense of self.
Disrupted attachment fosters an internalised sense of wrongness.
An infant adapts to the reality of their caregiving environment. When faced with shaming behaviour, emotional withdrawal, criticism, or unpredictable responses, the child unconsciously concludes that the problem lies within themselves.
As you wrote, and as the literature supports:
“…the infant’s primary drive is towards attachment [and] they will accommodate to the parenting style they experience…They can make meaning of their circumstances by believing that abuse is their fault and that they are inherently bad.”
This early conclusion becomes an organising principle—an internal working model based on shame.
Ongoing emotional abuse or neglect does not need to be dramatic. Systems of control, the threat of withdrawal of love, or chronic shaming create the same physiological and psychological imprint.
How Trauma Persists in the Body and Mind
Judith Herman and Bessel van der Kolk have shown that trauma persists in the body long after the original events have ended. Traumatic experiences shape unconscious responses—sensations, emotions, and impulses that arise automatically, often without context.
“These embedded responses are our daily companions, coming to the surface at times when we are reminded of situations similar to those in which the original trauma occurred.”
Emotional Flashbacks
A small rejection, a difficult conversation, or a minor failure can evoke overwhelming shame, panic, or abandonment terror in adults who were traumatised as children.
This is not overreaction.
It is the reactivation of early neural pathways formed when emotional (and physical) survival was at stake.
Hypervigilance and the Stress Response System
When a child grows up in an environment where emotional safety is inconsistent, the body learns to remain on high alert. The fight–flight–freeze system becomes chronically activated.
As you note:
“Infants, children and adults will adapt to frightening and overwhelming circumstances by the body’s survival response… immediately the body is flooded with a biochemical response…”
Over time, this leads to:
hyperarousal
difficulty relaxing
scanning for threat
rapid emotional escalation
exhaustion
Adults with a history of complex trauma often perceive threat in situations others experience as neutral.
Pre-Verbal Trauma and the Right Brain
Pre-verbal traumatic experiences are particularly difficult to integrate because, at the time they occurred, the child did not yet have the cognitive capacity to process them.
You wrote:
“Pre-verbal trauma is defined as ‘unmentalised.’ This means that it hasn’t been able to be processed by the frontal lobe because of the age of the child when the abuse or neglect occurred.”
Instead, these memories are stored:
in the right brain
in the limbic system
in sensory and emotional form
without narrative context
This storage pattern explains why trauma responses feel sudden, overwhelming, and hard to articulate.
Intergenerational Trauma and Parenting
Trauma can be passed down through emotional communication rather than explicit events. Parents with unresolved shame or trauma may inadvertently transmit dysregulation, fear, or shame-based responses to their children.
As you wrote:
“Parents with unresolved trauma can often find themselves confronted by strong unmentalised feelings… places where they feel out of control. It’s not a safe space for them – or their children.”
Young children rely on:
facial expression
tone
gesture
right-brain attunement
When these channels carry fear, shame, or unresolved trauma, the child absorbs these states without understanding their origin.
Trauma in Young People and Adolescents
The effects of early trauma often become visible during adolescence. Behaviours that look like defiance, withdrawal, perfectionism, hyperactivity, or rebellion are often attempts to manage unbearable internal states.
Some children “act out.”
Some “turn inward.”
Both patterns reflect the same underlying dysregulation.
Your original writing captures this powerfully, and all examples remain valid within this structured section.
How Psychotherapy Helps
Trauma-informed psychotherapy helps organise what was previously unprocessed. Through an attuned therapeutic relationship, the individual learns to:
recognise patterns formed in childhood
regulate emotional states
integrate unmentalised affect
make sense of internal experiences
rebuild a coherent sense of self
The goal is not simply to “manage symptoms,” but to restore internal stability and meaning.
Further Support
If you’re seeking support to understand how complex trauma may be affecting your emotional life, relationships, or sense of self, psychotherapy can offer an attuned and steady space to begin integrating these experiences.
You may also find my free ebook for daughters of narcissistic mothers helpful:
SIGN UP FOR MY FREE EBOOK FOR DAUGHTERS OF NARCISSISTIC MOTHERS HERE
For more about my approach to BPD and complex trauma treatment.
(Quotes are from the Department of Health and Human Services Child Development and Trauma Guide unless otherwise indicated)
Whats New in The Recovery Room:
helpful links for complex trauma:
Developmental trauma disorder: Towards a rational diagnosis for children with complex trauma histories. Bessel A. van der Kolk, MD http://www.traumacenter.org/products/pdf_files/preprint_dev_trauma_disorder.pdf
For more information see www.traumacenter.org
https://www.headspace.org.au/young-people/understanding-trauma-for-young-people/
It can take a lot of work. And goodwill. But despite all the bad press, narcissists can change.