Mindfulness Protects Adults' Health from the Impacts of Childhood Adversity

A recently developed model (late 1990s) for assessing early childhood experience as it relates to adult physical and mental health is the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) assessment (Felitti, et al., 1998; get your score here). The ACE scale identifies ten forms of adverse childhood experience (occurring before the age of 18): (1) verbal and emotional … Read more

Childhood Abuse and Neglect – The Objective Effects and the Subjective Experience

The two articles below are complimentary in their description of the impact of childhood maltreatment (CM: abuse and/or neglect). The first is only available as an abstract (paywall, of course) and the second comes from Psych Central, a nice resource for lay readers in psychology. Together these articles show the impact of CM on the … Read more

Abuse Alters Hormones in Kids, Hikes Risk of Metabolic Disorders

We have known for quite a while that children who experience abuse and/or neglect in childhood are more likely to have metabolic disorders as adults (i.e., be overweight, have type-II diabetes, high blood pressure, and so on). The mechanisms of action have not been clear, other than an awareness that it involves inflammation. The researchers … Read more