> **🌱 Planted:** Thu 12 December 2024 --- Little T Trauma (also known as Developmental Trauma or Complex Trauma) represents the [[Trauma is not the event, it's our internal experience|Trauma]] in childhood which appears to be insignificant and is therefore less memorable, but leaves a long-lasting, significant mark on a child's development, functioning and way of being. It is extremely prevalent in our culture (particularly Western), is poorly understood, and is rarely acknowledged which means there's a high risk of it flying under the radar and remaining undetected (see [[The issue of ignorance]] and [[The issue of misdiagnosis]]). Contrast to [[Big T Trauma is about significant, shocking events that are overwhelming and often life-threatening|Big T Trauma]], Little T Trauma is about the things that should've happened in childhood, but didn't—a child having their [[We all have normal developmental needs|needs met]] through the respect, acceptance, emotional support and unconditional love that every human being needs and deserves [^1]. It occurs when a child's needs are repeatedly not met and the child has no pathway to resolve the problem or get their needs met. This then causes unresolvable emotional pain and stuck energy which brings about adaptive strategies and behaviours in the child in attempt to get their needs met. The term that is often used for this is emotional abuse or neglect, which takes place around parents who aren't well attuned to their child and/or just don't understand, see or get them. These type of caregivers are the ones who are usually physically present, but are emotionally unavailable for whatever reason. Although it often goes unacknowledged and remains largely hidden in plain sight, it still causes a great amount of damage to the brain and nervous system, so much so that the we are now finding the effects of Little T Trauma on the body can be comparable to Big T Trauma, particularly where trauma is repeated (see [[When Trauma is repeated, it becomes Complex|Complex Trauma]]) [^2]. --- **➡️ Next:** - [[Big T Trauma is about significant, shocking events that are overwhelming and often life-threatening]] - [[Our caregivers don't need to be perfect, they just need to be good enough]] --- **\*️⃣️ Expand:** ️ - [[Narcissistic family systems prioritise the needs of the parents over the children|Narcissistic Family Systems]] and [[Family enmeshment sacrifices individuality and autonomy for closeness|Enmeshed Family Systems]] speak to the type of family systems in which [[Little T Trauma isn't about bad things happening, it's about good things not happening|Little T Trauma]] takes place. [^1]: [Tim Fletcher on 'Big T' vs 'Little t' Trauma - YouTube](https://youtu.be/c6xqnOUbbS8?si=nhZNBZfhGHDQI4S1) [^2]: [Neurobiological Development in the Context of Childhood Trauma - PMC](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6428430/#S8) *Childhood trauma, particularly if experienced early and often, is associated with neurobiological changes that may influence important processes, such as executive function and emotion regulation, as well as increase risk for dissociation and trauma-related disorders, such as PTSD and depression. This neurocognitive, emotion regulation, and psychiatric risk may result from cascading changes to neurobiology facilitated by chronic HPA axis reactivity and interaction with genetic and epigenetic processes during sensitive periods in development in ways that ultimately interfere with the structure, function, and functional connectively of the hippocampus, PFC, and amygdala and limit resilience to future stressors.*