Impact of Interpersonal Trauma on Social Relating and Death Awareness in Children and Adults 1.5 CEs

Abstract

This symposium explores the relationship between interpersonal traumas and social relating/death awareness in diverse populations of adults and children survivors. In the context of abuse and neglect trauma history, the research presented in this symposium addresses novel populations (e.g. Indian mothers with childhood trauma history), novel constructs (impact of trauma on mortality salience), novel family dynamics (separate impact of maternal and paternal traumas in the intergenerational transmission) and novel assessments (e.g. projective assessment of aggression).This symposium contributes substantially to the existing empirical literature on interpersonal trauma by including studies that fill conceptual, cultural and assessment gaps that exist in the current trauma research, and that provide evidence-based implications for working clinically with traumatized people. The first study of the symposium demonstrates that avoidant attachment in Indian mothers with a childhood history of abuse/neglect enhances maternal ability to engage in reflective functioning with their children. This is culturally relevant finding, since the role of avoidant attachment in Western cultures has been shown to be negative. The second study shows that in intergenerational trauma transmission it’s a paternal trauma history (including abuse/neglect) that relates to adult offspring difficulty with interpersonal relating (interpersonal sensitivity and dependency), while maternal trauma history has a smaller impact. Since the majority of Western research on intergenerational trauma concentrates on the role of a mother, this finding contributes to addressing father’s role in such transmission. The third study demonstrates a negative relationship between higher level of executive functioning and lower level of aggression in a clinical sample of highly traumatized children ( history of abuse/neglect), where aggression is assessed by a projective measure. This relationship has been well documented in the empirical literature, with aggression being assessed by self-reports, which is prone to substantial biases. The fourth study demonstrates that individual trauma history (including abuse/neglect) relates to increase sense of disempowerment in the face of mortality awareness experienced during COVID-19 pandemic. More research has been emerging addressing the impact of COVID pandemic on mental health, however there are no studies exploring how an individual’s pre-pandemic interpersonal trauma history influences ways of coping, particularly when faced with death anxiety that pandemic substantially enhanced. In summary, this symposium addresses impact of interpersonal traumas (including neglect and abuse) in unexplored areas of cultural diversity, death anxiety, paternal influence and projective assessment of aggression, thus filling existing gaps in the trauma research.

Chair

Kate Szymanski | Adelphi University

Goals & Objectives

1. To increase the knowledge on the relationship between sexual/physical abuse and interpersonal functioning in children and adults
2. To introduce cross cultural findings on interpersonal trauma and reflective functioning
3. To introduce implicit assessment of aggression in the context of executive functioning in children with interpersonal trauma
4. To increase the knowledge on the impact of interpersonal trauma on mortality awareness during COVID-19 pandemic