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Re: borderline personality or PTSD?
Researchers in neurobiology have concepts to add to this issue as well. In
this arena, child abuse is conceptualized as a form of stress. Given this
presumption, the biological response to stress involves the
hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. In animals models of child
abuse (e.g., maternal separation paradigms using both rodents and nonhuman
primates), HPA dysregulation adversely affects the development of the
hippocampus and possibly other brain regions as well (see work by Bruce
McEwen at Rockefellar U.). Clinically, neuropsychological deficits
associated with the hippocampus and reduced size of this brain region have
also been documented in adults with PTSD stemming from a history of child
abuse (Bremner et al., 1995, 1997; Stein et al., 1997). It would be
interesting to ascertain whether this specific biological stress response
differs across cultures.
Carryl Navalta
>Jumping in here, I think that Judy and Bruce are both correct... or would
>be correct.. if
>we agreed on an operational definition of what the term "damaged" means.
>Many people go
>through life with little or no apparent affects of early child abuse.
>However, it would
>be foolish to say that their self concept was unchanged as they go through
>other life
>experiences. For example, would a woman who was sexually "seduced" as a
>child in an
>otherwise "good" relationship be a different kind of mother in areas of
>protecting her own
>daughters? Of course she would. This, like all experiences in life,
>affect who we are.
>To call this "damage" is a matter of deciding how we will use the term.
>
>Child abuse is a cultural term as we all know. What is abuse in one
>culture may not be
>abuse in another, as distastful as that may be to recognize. Damage often
>comes from the
>clash of the childs concepts of the experience, verses the childs
>developing expectations
>and understandings of what is expected and acceptable in the his/her
>culture. We all need
>to feel that we fit in somewhere, and many of these children never get
>away from the
>concept that they do not, because of their past experiences. That is damage.
>
>Jim Hord
>James E. Hord, Jr. Ph.D.
>Clinical Psychologist
>http://pswf.com
>Jim@Hord.com
Carryl P. Navalta, Ph.D.
Assistant Child Psychologist Instructor in Psychiatry
McLean Hospital Harvard Medical School
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