The genesis of this book about development itself has been a developmental process. The structure as well as the source of some of the material derive from a conference held in 2005, entitled “Four Dimensions of Childhood: Brain, Mind, Culture, and Time.” Organized and funded by the nonprofit The Foundation for Psychocultural Research (FPR), the meeting was co-sponsored by the University of California, Los Angeles, and The Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD, R13HD048149). The conference itself was the product of the vision of FPR founder Robert Lemelson, of discussions by members of the foundation board, and of creative and energetic foundation staff.

The intellectual highlights of the conference drove decisions about formation of the volume. First, we found that the initial focus on advances in developmental neuroscience required expansion to include the equally compelling breakthroughs in epigenetics, genomics, neuroendocrine regulation, and behavioral and social biology. Second, we observed that the interaction among scientists and practitioners around specific cases or findings were particularly revealing. Several sessions at the meeting were organized as case studies, which were then discussed in depth by a panel of researchers from different fields. We found that the diversity of contexts, observations, and perspectives – even within academic disciplines – contributed to a richer understanding of early life experience and its defining moments. Consequently, we set out to identify a complementary set of case studies or research vignettes and then elicited commentary from key thinkers in other fields.

INTRODUCTION

This section focuses on the interaction of attachment and intergenerational transmission of aggressive behavior. Each of the case studies and commentaries that follow explores how, in the context of human development, the caregiving environment shapes the infant's experience, understanding, and expression of aggression. One of these case studies (Fouts) compares approaches to parenting that affect the very young child's understanding and expression of aggression in a hunter-gatherer society versus a neighboring agrarian society in the Congo Basin rainforest. Among other questions, this ethnographic case study raises the question of how culture potentially constrains caregivers' behavior and childrearing goals with outcomes that may or may not prove adaptive for a given society over time.

The remaining case studies describe formative violent experiences whose effects on the organism, in human (i.e., Busch & Lieberman and Schechter) and primate studies (i.e., Sánchez, McCormack, & Maestripieri), ripple across generations in biological and psychological domains that we are only now beginning to understand. The child's potential to become parent-victim and/or perpetrator of violence may have many determinants, not the least of which are the following: the developmental window of exposure (Moriceau & Sullivan, 2006), genetic and epigenetic vulnerability (Binder et al., 2008), the quality of infant-parent attachment, the larger caregiving system's attunement to the child's developmental needs, as well as the child's ever-evolving narrative construction of his or her own experience as influenced by family relationships, community, and cultural contexts (Madigan, Moran, Schuengel, Pederson, & Otten, 2007; Tremblay et al., 2004; Schechter et al., 2007).

This case study describes a mother and daughter who participated in a clinical research study of the psychological and communicative processes involved in the intergenerational transmission of violent trauma. The research study is described in greater detail in previous publications (Schechter, Kaminer, Grienenberger, & Amat, 2003; Schechter, 2003). The version of the case presented in this chapter provides additional follow-up through the child's seventh year of life, some of which has been described in previous papers (Schechter et al., 2007; Hatzor, 2005).

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and commonly comorbid psychopathology associated with the intergenerational transmission of violent trauma (i.e. dissociative, somatoform, affective, personality, and substance use disorders) are serious public health problems. We know from epidemiologic research that at least one-third of abused children will abuse their children when they become parents themselves. A similar number of male children who witness partner violence will become violent with their partners beginning in adolescence and continuing through adulthood. Abused, violence-exposed, and neglected children show an astonishingly high rate of PTSD and associated comorbid psychopathology – in particular, dissociative phenomena – that have been linked to intergenerational transmission (Oliver, 1993; Widom, 1999; Egeland & Susman-Stillman, 1996).

However, the specific psychological mechanisms by which perpetuation of violence (i.e., hostile stance), repeated victimization (i.e., helpless stance), and psychopathology associated with both (e.g., PTSD, dissociative phenomena) are transmitted remain largely unknown: hence our research study.

Introduction

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, made mental health professionals keenly aware of the need for relationally and developmentally focused interventions for traumatized young children and their families with greater urgency than ever before. Healthcare providers, educators, the media, and politicians were barraged by questions about parents who were concerned about the effects of this very public political violence on their young children,whether or not they were directly affected by the attacks.

Those young children who were directly affected by the attacks in New York or who witnessed the crashing of the two passenger planes into the World Trade Center (WTC) and the toppling of the Twin Towers were many in number: over 3000 children lost a parent, thousands of children attending schools and day-care centers near Ground Zero directly witnessed the attacks. Additionally, untold millions of children around the world watched the attacks repeatedly on TV. Children worldwide were reported to suffer from nightmares following the events of 9/11, and for weeks had difficulty concentrating in school (Hoven et al., 2003).

Historical overview of understanding trauma in a relational context

One of the most important observations which has informed our current relational view of child traumatic stress came from the study by Anna Freud and Dorothy Burlingham (1943). They noted the following during the London Blitz of World War II: “The war acquires comparatively little significance for children so long as it only threatens their lives, disturbs their material comfort, or cuts their food rations.