Every day a child somewhere will suffer from abuse and neglect, the result of growing up in a home with domestic violence, mental illness or addiction, or from the loss of a parent due to separation or imprisonment. Such trauma can inflict psychological and physical damage that appears when that child grows into an adult and lasts the rest of his life.
That troubling cause-and-effect link between early and later events is well documented.
But for far too long we have done little to break that inextricable connection or even openly acknowledge it.
After all, we freely talk about the bodily harm that chemicals, pollution, and secondhand smoke does to children. And when it comes to physical problems such as cancer and heart disease, increasing public attention, early intervention and aggressive treatment have lowered incidence rates and the likelihood of death in both conditions.
For more of this story, written by Robert Pearl MD, go to [http://www.forbes.com/sites/ro...traumatized-adult-2/]
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