I have been assisting legal teams with understanding how early life trauma affects their clients’ developmental course, whether abuse, neglect, or traumatic loss. I write about these impacts regarding how the relative risk and protective factors influence emotional development. This understanding mostly comes through the twin lenses of attachment theory and the effects of particular trauma on brain development.
Attachment theory is an evidence-based theory that posits that the development of the sense of self, relational capabilities, and many executive functions occur due to the early caregiver-child bond.