The theme of linking childhood experiences to subsequent behaviour in adulthood has been around for a long time now. There was a Jesuit saying which dated back to the 16th century in which he stated to give him a child until he was 7 years old, and he will return a man. Here, this claim suggests that the first 7 years of someone’s life is crucial in determining the outcome of the individual’s behaviour with emphasis on education and discipline. Sociologists refer to the study of childhood as socialisation. This term refers to the acquisition of ideas and values – both highly susceptible to the society and environment one grows up in.
One person who influenced various perspectives and way of thinking concerning childhood was Sigmund Freud (1920, 1923). Freud’s work involved viewing mental processes as the unconscious. He theorised that our personality was comprised of three components: the ego, the id and the superego. Here, the id refers to our most primal instincts in our unconscious(unaware) mind; while the ego works to mediate between these unrealistic instincts and the external reality; the superego is comprised of two systems – the ideal self and the conscience. It aids in incorporating morals and values we have learned from our parents and surroundings to help control the id’s impulses. Through this theory, he explains the reason symptoms of mental illnesses arise within us is due to underlying, and often unconscious, dynamics of mental life. In other words, the reason why we may have such symptoms is due to repressed thoughts that we are unaware of. Often these unconscious thoughts contain our more biologically based instincts and attempt to make themselves conscious through other ways such as appearing in dreams as symbols.
Freud (1915, 1924) also strongly emphasised how early childhood experiences may affect development later in life, as well as the importance of parents to aid in their child’s emotional development. Since he placed childhood experiences as crucial to one’s development, he proposed that children go through certain stages which are essential for the development of which there are five stages altogether: oral, anal, phallic, latency and genital sexuality. He believed that children develop personality after going through these stages due to pleasure-seeking energy from the id focus on different erogenous areas. According to this theory, personalities are established by the age of 5. He claims that if one of the stages are not completely passed through, it may cause issues to arise in the individual later in life. If these issues are not resolved at the appropriate stage, a fixation may occur causing the individual to be “stuck” in one of the stages. One example would be those who are stuck in the oral stage may pick up the habit of smoking as they are persistently seeking oral stimulation even later in life.
Freud has garnered quite a few criticisms over the past years since his golden days. One of the main arguments being that his approaches are non-scientific and main theories involving the unconscious are difficult to measure. Given his fixation on sexuality in his theories have also made the topic rather controversial. However, despite all the criticisms, he did bring a different approach to viewing child development. Due to this he was able to impact other individuals in his field aiding in the creation of new theories and approaches. One such person who was informed by the Freudian thinking was Bowlby. Bowlby’s theory of attachment refers attachment as a deep and emotional bond that connects one person to another. Bowlby found that there was a link between the mother and child’s bond with the child’s development. Bowlby and Robertson (1952) had noticed that children displayed signs of extreme distress when they were separated from their mothers, regardless of whether they were being tended to by other caregivers. Bowlby explained this attachment within an evolutionary context where a caregiver would provide safety and comfort for the infant. Caring and adapting the child to the new surroundings would increase infant’s survival.
In his book, Bowlby (1953) also put emphasis on the importance of a warm, continuous relationship with one’s mother, or someone viewed as a permanent mother substitute, was crucial to one’s development. The absence of the mother is known as maternal deprivation which may eventually lead to adverse consequences for individuals’ emotional and intellectual development – thus affecting their mental health. He noted that apathy and symptoms of depression were prevalent even at young ages. Harlow and Zimmerman (1958) studied how failure to form attachment affected infant monkeys. He found that the monkeys isolated from birth were displaying more bizarre behaviours such as clutching their bodies or rocking compulsively. When they were placed with other monkeys, they did not know how to behave and turned aggressive after they were unable to communicate effectively. These monkeys also indulged in self-mutilation such as tearing their hair out and biting their own limbs. Being unable to have a safe and secure base at a young age caused the monkey to grow up rather perturbed and permanently damaged. The duration of the isolation also correlated to the abnormal behaviour displayed.
In another group, Harlow had isolated the monkeys from birth too but gave this group surrogate mothers: one providing comfort (made of cloth) and the other provided all the necessities such as nourishment. The monkeys also showed preference to the clothed surrogate too despite not providing any necessities besides comfort and security. Harlow noted the various differences between monkeys who grew up with real mothers and surrogate mothers; they were more timid, easily bullied, had difficulty mating and the females were inadequate as mothers. These findings support evidence that early experiences do impact one’s mental health. Despite the fact the study was done on monkeys, the findings could be applied to people as well – this particular behaviour is prevalent in those who have had family problems or have had difficulty in securing a safe base when they were younger.
Another factor that may contribute to outcome of mental health would be the environment. The environment an individual grows up in is crucial in shaping their development. Take Faris and Dunham (1939) studied the geographical distribution of mental illness in Chicago. The city was crudely divided into concentric zones in which the upper-middle class families tended to live on the outer zones. The central zones had poorer rooming houses and were typically comprised of single people. The findings from the study found that individuals who suffer from schizophrenia were mostly concentrated in the central zones, so those with lower standard of living. Faris and Dunham suggested this was rather due to social factors such as lack of social network in the poorer localities as well as higher levels of isolation. Individuals who were found with what was previously called manic-depressive psychosis (bipolar disorder) tended to be spread out across the city, making it more of a genetic disorder as compared to schizophrenia.
Although genetics are clearly impertinent when it comes to schizophrenia, the environment of which an individual’s genes find expression is also crucial to the development of the illness. There has been an increase in research finding links between early childhood trauma and the risk of psychosis during adulthood. Therefore adoption studies are useful for examining the interaction between genetics and environment in isolation. Studies that involve adoption look at children who have schizophrenic mothers but were not reared by them, meaning they have higher risk in developing schizophrenia. What Tienari, Wynne, Sorri, Lahti, Läksy, Moring, Naarala, Nieminen, and Wahlberg (2002) found was that the way the individuals were treated highly influenced the development of schizophrenia. Individuals who had poorer relationships with their family(such as conflict or lack of empathy) were more likely to develop a schizophrenia spectrum disorder. The findings suggest those with high genetic risk of schizophrenia are more sensitive to the adverse rearing patterns as compared to their low genetic risk counterpart. This means that poor rearing of individual would lead to increased likelihood of developing a schizophrenia spectrum disorder.
There have also been numerous evidence linking adverse childhood traumas to their mental health. One example would be Felitti VJ et al(1998) in which they looked at the number of adverse childhood exposure(ACEs) and the prevalence of depressed moods and suicide attempts. ACEs refer to abuse, domestic violence, and other forms of dysfunction. What they found was that the individuals who reported more than four categories of exposure had significantly higher ratings of depressed mood and suicide attempt. The findings also found that childhood emotional abuse increased risk for lifetime depressive disorders. The sexual abuse was also more prevalent in women for this study; there has been subsequent research which indicate that there is a relationship between childhood sexual abuse and sexual victimisation as an adult(Ports, Ford and Merrick, 2016). Here it is evident that early childhood experiences do affect us later in life. According to the ACE pyramid the mechanism by which ACE influences one’s health and wellbeing throughout their lifetime starts from ACE itself, followed by disrupted neurodevelopment. This is followed by social, emotional and cognitive impairment as their nerurons are unable to develop further. After that, individuals may adopt health-risk behaviours which may lead to diseases, disability and social problems. At the top of the pyramid is early death.
Another example would be Horwitz, Widom, McLaughlin and White(2001) where they examined the impact of three typres of victimisation in childhood which were: sexual abuse, physical abuse and neglect. They used prospective data in which they examined records of documented court cases of childhood abuse and neglect during 1970. These individuals were then interviewed 20 years later and were measured for three conditions: dysthemia, anti-social personality disorder and alcohol problems. In men who were abused or neglected as children had more dysthemia and anti-social personality disorder as adults compared to their control counterparts. In women, it was the same except that also had more alcohol problems than the control group.
The way an individual is raised and the values ingrained into them at a young age would cause repercussions later in their adult life. When looking across different cultures, each culture is unique to their own – meaning that although one culture may value a certain item, other cultures may not value it in the same manner. Nazroo(1997) analysed data from previous surveys focusing on ethnicity and mental health in Britain. What he found was that individuals who were from South Asia(India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and African Asians) showed that they had lower rates of depression and non-affective psychosis as compared to their white counterparts.
However there has been evidence suggesting that asians tend to express their issues or problems through physical symptoms(Stokem and Natasha, 1998). This is especially true for individuals who were less acculturated with the western ideals. The reason for this is because most asians have rather averse thoughts concerning the issue of mental health due to its stigma(Kramer, Kwong, Lee and Chung, 2002). It is due to the social stigma, shame and the act of trying to save face is what prevents them from reaching out and getting appropriate help. The shame comes from having rather traditional family values in which each individual would already clearly have a specific, clearly defined role in the family heirarchy. Having these expectation placed on them since they were born while viewing mental health as a secondary, or even third, priority does impact the individual once they reach adulthood.
Moreover, asian parents typically act aloof when it comes to their children. In most cases, words are never clearly expressed in an asian household whereas western families value openess between parent and child. Expressions of endearment and affectionate gestures become more seldom as asian children grow up. Asian parents also typically have strong traditional values they wish to instill to their children and so sometimes conflict may occur. However since asian parents do not directly apologise to their children in words, rather in action such as cooking your favourite food after a scolding, it may cause individuals to form a rather passive-aggressive behaviour. The lack of transparency between parent and child may also cause a stunted emotional development in the infant once they reach maturity. This may lead to problems in the individuals interpersonal life seeing as maintaining a stable and consistent relationship may just prove to be too difficult.
There has been substaintial evidence supporting how early childhood experiences are crucial to subsequent mental health. The most prevalent factor in affecting one’s mental health is abuse, especially sexual abuse. Although the effect is not restricted to common mental disorders, adverse childhood experiences can generate psychotic states.