3 Reasons Lifespan Integration Therapy Can Help Children Suffering from Complex Trauma

Lifespan Integration therapy for children who have suffered complex trauma has been shown to help them for three reasons.

First, children are naturally more imaginative than adults. Lifespan integration therapy uses a timeline of a child’s life, combined with imagining different outcomes, to reorganize traumatic events through a body-mind connection.

Of course, especially with children who have been through multiple types of trauma, it’s important for therapists to be gentle, slow, and pay attention to how a child responds to therapy. Walking a child through a timeline of positive memories and body connections, as well as something that may have been a traumatic memory, can give the child the ability to transition through the timeline more smoothly.

This timeline process, repeated over and over, is a slow means of healing that restores a child’s ability to process different types of traumas through a new lens over time. It may also allow for a new outcome in behaviors, according to recent research.

Second, children can suffer from complex trauma, which is trauma that comes from multiple triggers rather than one single event. Complex trauma treatment requires a variety of gentle approaches that allow children the time and space to grow. This is because they’re young enough to still be forming their neural pathways and connecting core memories to bodily cues and behaviors.

A child can change because the years between the traumatic events and his or her current age are shorter than those of an adult. They have less learned experience to become defensive, in denial, or non-compliant.

While an adult has had an entire lifespan to learn unhealthy coping mechanisms related to trauma, a child has had less time and can change more readily because their brains are still forming. While neural pathways can change over time even for adults, a child’s brain is more easily adaptable simply due to their youth.

Third, they do not have the defense mechanisms grounded in place the way a fully developed adult would have. A child who undergoes complex trauma develops defenses. Still, he or she can order them differently through a lifespan timeline simply because they have less time span and corresponding defenses to wade through.

Why is lifespan integration therapy helpful for children with complex trauma?

When a child has gone through trauma at multiple ages or from multiple sources, treating trauma with a simply behavioral approach may not be enough.

While treatments such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy are still helpful, Lifespan Integration therapy can help reconnect neural pathways and restore a child’s sense of self-connection. This, then, impacts behavior more organically.

Rather than learning new behavior based on patterns of self-discovery to bring about change, a child with complex trauma who undergoes Lifespan Integration therapy roots his or her new behavior in new perspectives and memories where the trauma is acknowledged but doesn’t wield the same power it once did.

Especially with trauma that comes from multiple sources, this gentle approach gives a child the ability to connect self-worth with truth rather than connecting it to what someone else has done outside of himself or herself.

What is complex trauma?

At its simplest, complex trauma is when a child experiences something traumatic repeatedly and/or multiple types of traumatic events. This kind of trauma is most often layered and connected to a variety of life circumstances.

For example, a child who has an imprisoned parent may experience the emotional neglect that comes from not having a parent readily available. But that same child could undergo financial-related trauma if his home life isn’t stable due to a single-parent income. Still further trauma may result from things like a bully in school or a caregiver who doesn’t treat the child with respect.

Because complex trauma involves multiple events, the connections made during Lifespan Integration therapy can be incredibly healing. While a child does not revisit each event to share with his younger self a new perspective on it, as an adult undergoing this type of therapy would, a trained child psychologist can be an excellent guide for children for whom other therapies haven’t been successful.

How long does Lifespan Integration Therapy last?

The use of Lifespan Integration therapy varies depending on the client and what the psychologist treating the child decides is appropriate.

How does Lifespan Integration Therapy work?

While neuroplasticity studies are still being conducted throughout the field of neuropsychology, research indicates that Lifespan Integration therapy can help a client’s memories rewire and refire.

Basically, the brain is pliable and can learn or change over time, which is good news for anyone suffering from trauma. This is especially true for children whose brains are still developing.

Lifespan Integration therapy is a method of therapy where, with a trained counselor, a child walks through various events in his or her life in a gentle, structured timeline. Some of the events may be positive, and some may not be. However, a safe adult enters the timeline with them when they walk through the more negative memories.

By using their imagination and revisiting this timeline with this trusted adult entering the scene, a child can imagine rescue from the trauma and imagine being taken to a place that he or she feels is safe. As the timeline gets revisited in each session, the experience is quick so that children don’t get re-traumatized or overwhelmed by the process. Over time, children are able to acknowledge the missing pieces of a timeline with fewer stress responses.

Lifespan Integration therapy has been shown to help a child grow in several ways.

First, children who respond well to this type of therapy can better integrate their mental understanding of the traumatic events through a more cohesive timeline, better recall, and awareness of how the event impacted them.

Second, children can better regulate their emotions overall because they’ve been able to walk through a restructured timeline according to the therapy they receive. It doesn’t take away what happened to them, but it helps their emotional receptors to respond instead of react.

This can help with all kinds of emotional regulation as children grow into teens and adulthood. It can impact how they view themselves and how they view what happens to them as they move into their future. Lifespan Integration therapy can help a child to have hope even though he’s suffered multiple types of trauma.

Instead of reacting to situations with defenses up, a child who has participated in this type of therapy can handle stressful events with a less emotionally charged response. Other ways the therapy helps children are:

• An increased self-confidence?
• A positive outlook on circumstances?
• A more defined sense of wholeness and self?
• Better attachment to caregivers currently or in the future?

In some cases, children who have struggled with dissociation can benefit from this therapy. Dissociation makes it difficult to integrate sensory experiences. Children who struggle with this may have intense emotional responses, symptoms of anxiety, depression markers, or sudden shifts in their mood.

Being able to recognize how memory relates to your ability to process what goes on in your life today is a skill that children who suffer from complex trauma don’t usually gain on their own without therapy to heal from their experiences. Research suggests that, left untended, childhood complex trauma survivors are more likely to struggle with mental health issues, substance abuse, and career or relationship instability as adults.

But there is hope, and we are here to help.

Next Steps

If you know someone who may benefit from Lifespan Integration therapy, reach out to one of our offices. Experienced, trained counselors are equipped to begin the journey toward healing and a more well-defined sense of self that this type of therapy can bring.