Mourning the Mamalith

Mourning the Mamalith: A Graphic Response to GriefOn February 17, 2021, my mother, Ingrid Margarethe Phyllis Gertrud von Reitzenstein Claussner, falls and breaks her neck while doing what she loves most: going to church. "Jesus is the most important person in my life," she once told me. Always subordinate to her divine love affair, my mortal relationship with her was complicated. At key moments throughout my life, starting in infancy when I needed her care and protection most, she was absent. Due to my mother's early childhood trauma, she was unable to get too close to anyone, even to me, her only child. Jesus was her answer to every question, no matter what the question. This level of devotion to an invisible entity was incomprehensible to me, but I loved my mother with every ounce of my being. On February 18, 2021, Gracie is born on a ranch in Nebraska. Her mother dies shortly after giving birth—not from complications of having puppies, but from eating part of a towel. On February 19, 2021, my mother dies in the hospital in Tucson, Arizona.On May 1, 2021, my wife and I drive to Nebraska to pick up Gracie the boxer puppy. She is ten weeks old but still just a teeny five-pound runt. She grows very quickly and continues to thrive. Nevertheless, I have recurring panic attacks at night in response to dreams and spontaneous mental images of Gracie's tiny, vulnerable body. I can't shake the feeling that something might happen to her, and that I may not be able to protect her.In early June, the morning after another night of anxiety and insomnia, I tearfully call my wise therapist friend, Leslie. She tells me that when one's mother dies, part of the grieving process requires that one re-experience every fraught moment and emotion: "You are healing not just your own relationship with your mother, but you are healing your entire maternal lineage. You must relive everything on a deeper level now, even if you've already worked through these feelings before." I realize that my nightly anxiety attacks aren't really about Gracie, but about my own vulnerability when I was an infant. I am re-experiencing those early moments through my visceral connection with this tiny mammal who depends on me. This short comic looks at the mysterious connection between processing childhood vulnerability and trauma, more-than-human and human interdependence, and psychosomatic healing. As I've done in some of my previous work, by materializing thoughts as drawn and written sequential vignettes, I hope to gain and share insight about the mysterious dynamics of embodied cognition.

Supporting Young Children Exposed to Potentially Traumatic Events: Implications for Early Care and Education Policy

Every year in the United States, millions of young children under the age of 5 are exposed to potentially traumatic events that threaten their safety, security, and well-being. Decades of scientific research clearly demonstrate the pervasive negative consequences of trauma exposure on young children’s neurocognitive, psychosocial, and physical development, with adverse effects extending into adulthood. In addition, early childhood trauma is now widely recognized as a significant public health concern warranting comprehensive intervention. Federal, state, and private early care and education (ECE) programs serve a large number of the 0 to 5 population and can mitigate the harmful consequences of trauma exposure for children’s health and well-being. The literature on early childhood trauma should guide the creation of policies that strengthen ECE, enabling the delivery of high-quality, equitable, trauma-informed care to young children prior to formal school entry.

The Role of Cytokines in the Pathogenesis of Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is a chronic mental illness of unknown etiology. A growing and compelling body of evidence implicates immunologic dysfunction as the key element in its pathomechanism. Cytokines, whose altered levels have been increasingly reported in various patient populations, are the major mediators involved in the coordination of the immune system. The available literature reports both elevated levels of proinflammatory as well as reduced levels of anti-inflammatory cytokines, and their effects on clinical status and neuroimaging changes. There is evidence of at least a partial genetic basis for the association between cytokine alterations and schizophrenia. Two other factors implicated in its development include early childhood trauma and disturbances in the gut microbiome. Moreover, its various subtypes, characterized by individual symptom severity and course, such as deficit schizophrenia, seem to differ in terms of changes in peripheral cytokine levels. While the use of a systematic review methodology could be difficult due to the breadth and diversity of the issues covered in this review, the applied narrative approach allows for a more holistic presentation. The aim of this narrative review was to present up-to-date evidence on cytokine dysregulation in schizophrenia, its effect on the psychopathological presentation, and links with antipsychotic medication. We also attempted to summarize its postulated underpinnings, including early childhood trauma and gut microbiome disturbances, and propose trait and state markers of schizophrenia.

Early Trauma and Later Sexual Victimization in College Women: A Multiple Mediation Examination of Alexithymia, Impulsivity, and Alcohol Use

Childhood abuse and sexual violence against women are prevalent in the United States. However, researchers have not fully explored the intersection among important predisposing factors that predict recent sexual violence experienced by women who are also survivors of childhood abuse. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships among early childhood trauma, alexithymia, impulsivity, alcohol use severity, and sexual victimization in later life among female college students from the United States ( n = 1,178). Participants were part of a larger cross-cultural study, conducted between 2012 to 2014, which examined sexual aggression and victimization in the context of alcohol use. The current study aimed to examine if: (a) early trauma, impulsivity, alexithymia, and alcohol use severity impact sexual victimization in later life, and (b) if impulsivity, alexithymia, and alcohol use severity mediate the relationship between early trauma and victimization in later life. It was hypothesized that impulsivity, alexithymia, and alcohol use severity would significantly mediate the relationship between early trauma and sexual victimization in later life. Using a multiple mediation path analysis, results indicated that early childhood trauma was significantly linked with impulsivity, alcohol use severity, and sexual victimization in later life. A partial mediation through impulsivity and alcohol use severity was observed. Alexithymia did not produce mediation effects. These findings align with previous research examining how early childhood trauma influences the occurrence of sexual victimization in later life and provides further recommendations for helping professionals as they attempt to stifle the sexual victimization rates among female college students.

From the Shadow to the Light: Navigating Life as a Mother with a History of Substance Use and Parenting a Child Healing from Early Childhood Trauma

We report on an innovative in-patient residential recovery program that serves as a model for those who treat low-income women with substance use and psychiatric problems and their children. The case discussed details the psychotherapeutic treatment of a mother and child that was carried out within the protection of the program’s seeking safety, trauma informed model of care. The treatment demonstrates the sensitive care that is needed when working with a young child with a history of early childhood trauma and the favorable ways that holding the mother in mind freed her to be emotionally available to her son. In this situation, the therapist provided an emotionally-attuned interpersonal therapeutic relationship and created features of safety in the environment that helped the child develop an emerging reorganized protective structure to safely explore his fears. The mother and child can follow a course of recovery from traumatic experiences within the context of favorable conditions, thereby interrupting the intergenerational dynamics of early relational trauma.