How Relational Trauma Survivors Acclimate

When we come from relational trauma backgrounds, our sense of what is “normal” (aka: healthy, functional, and appropriate) may become distorted.

What is relational trauma?

As I define it in my work, relational trauma, specifically childhood relational trauma, is the kind of trauma that results over the course of time in the context of a power-imbalanced and dysfunctional relationship (often between a child and caregiver) that results in a host of complex and lingering biopsychosocial impacts for the individual who endured the trauma.

It’s a set of experiences that takes place in relationship – usually with parents or caregivers – that can set a conscious and unconscious template of what we come to expect in our lives.

And in relational trauma experiences, that template is often unhealthy, dysfunctional, or maladaptive.

What templates can be formed?

Our belief about how worthy and lovable we are may be distorted.

Our sense of boundaries may be warped.

Our ability to feel regulated and safe may be impaired.

Our views on how reliable and consistent others are may be skewed.

Our belief about our needs and wants and what’s possible in terms of having those needs and wants met may be altered…

And that, specifically, is what I want to talk about today: our beliefs about our needs and wants and what’s possible in terms of getting them met when we come from relational trauma backgrounds.

All of us, from the moment we are born, need to attach safely to others.

Our literal survival depends on it as infants and children.

But beyond food and shelter and the absence of danger, infants and children require attunement, mirroring, and positive interpersonal interactions to help shape and form our brains and nervous systems.

What do I mean by this?

Attunement, the process of being aware of and responsive to a child's needs, is crucial for emotional attachment and the development of secure relationships.

It begins with meeting basic needs but also includes responding to a child’s emotional states in a way that makes them feel understood and safe.

This emotional connection is foundational for a child's overall development, helping them to feel secure and fostering a strong foundation for their emotional and psychological growth​​​​.

Research highlights the impact of these interactions on brain development.

For instance, variations in mother-infant interactions have been associated with differences in infant brain volumes, particularly in areas related to emotional regulation and socio-emotional functioning.

Studies show that lower maternal sensitivity correlates with smaller subcortical grey matter volumes, and maternal sensitivity has been linked to better connectivity between the hippocampus and areas important for emotional regulation​​.

Additionally, the concept of "serve and return" interactions, where caregivers respond in a supportive and nurturing manner to children's signals, is crucial for brain architecture.

These interactions help build critical skills for social engagement, including emotion regulation and frustration tolerance.

Parent-child synchrony, a form of interaction involving mutual focus and mirroring, supports the development of social engagement abilities and provides a template for biological synchrony, which is essential for tuning children's systems to social life​​.

So clearly, attunement, mirroring, and positive prosocial reciprocal social interactions are crucial for our development.

But what if we don’t have that?

Or what if we don’t have it consistently?

Or what if we have something that passes for it some of the time?

For example, what if in one moment, mom is safe to be around but in a rage another time?

What then?

As with most things in life, we acclimate.

Research has shown consistently that children do acclimate to relational experiences, even if they're not healthy, through mechanisms that can have lasting impacts on their well-being and development.

We get used to what we’re presented with, our brains and psyches develop in response to the volume and quality of relational connection we’re provided, and we shape our conscious and unconscious beliefs and our behaviors around the reality we live with.

But, of course, very often, children lack a sense of what’s normal and functional due to a lack of lived experience and other models showcasing healthier, more functional behavior.

And so often, in cases where we don’t have adequate or optimal relational connection, we come to believe that what we’re experiencing is “normal” and we adapt.

We acclimate.

In lay terms, we become accustomed to being served bread crumbs of affection, warmth, safety, attunement, emotional support, fun and play…

We believe that the breadcrumbs are “normal” and we take what we can get.

But here’s the thing: we may accept the breadcrumbs, we may acclimate to them, but the larger hunger doesn’t go away.

The acclimation to little may happen; but the hunger endures.

Even as we acclimate to breadcrumbs and get used to scraps of emotional satiety from our parents and caregivers, the larger need, the hunger for more doesn’t go away.

And what is this proverbial hunger?

The hunger to be able to feel securely attached to others.

The hunger for the experience of being attuned to.

The hunger for the experience of being consistently cared for.

The hunger for being seen and valued.

The hunger for moments of having our emotions respected, validated, and accepted.

All of these hungers are still at play – for children, for adolescents, for adults.

We don’t stop feeling hungry for these things even as we acclimate to the breadcrumbs of what may or may not be available from our caregivers.

So what happens when we don’t get our hungers fully met by the scraps and breadcrumbs from our earliest attachment relationships?

We find other ways of meeting those hungers.

In the second part of this two-part essay, we'll explore what meeting those hungers in the face of not having our needs met can look like, what the consequences are, and how we begin to heal from that.