The hidden wounds of childhood trauma
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Journal Title
European Journal of Psychotraumatology
ISSN
2000-8066
Publisher
Taylor & Francis
Volume
8
Issue
Sup. 5
Number
10.1080/20008198.2017.1375840
Type
Article
This Version
VoR
Metadata
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Danese, A., & van Harmelen, A. (2017). The hidden wounds of childhood trauma. European Journal of Psychotraumatology, 8 (Sup. 5. 10.1080/20008198.2017.1375840)https://doi.org/10.1080/20008198.2017.1375840
Abstract
Although the role of intense psychological distress in psychopathology has been recognized for centuries, the metaphorical use of the word ‘trauma’ to indicate intense psychological distress only became popular in the midst of the industrial revolution (Danese & Baldwin, 2017 Danese, A., & Baldwin, J. (2017). Hidden wounds? Inflammatory links between childhood trauma and psychopathology. Annual Review of Psychology, 68(1), 517–544. doi:10.1146/annurev-psych-010416-044208
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). The introduction of the steam engine and the spread of railways led to a sharp increase in train accidents. Strikingly, many accidents involved previously healthy individuals who developed mental illness even in the absence of physical injury – the so-called ‘railway spine’. These unusual observations triggered a heated debate. On the one side, there were proponents of organic explanations (e.g. Oppenheim), who thought train accidents could have caused yet undetectable brain injuries leading to psychopathology. On the other side, there were proponents of functional explanations (e.g. Charcot), who thought that the mental/intra-psychic representation of the accidents – so-called ‘psychological’ trauma – could lead to psychopathology.
Sponsorship
Royal Society (DH150176)
Identifiers
External DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/20008198.2017.1375840
This record's URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/270023
Rights
Attribution 4.0 International, Attribution 4.0 International
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