Traumatic childhood experiences and addiction : professionals’ perspectives and perceptions

Abstract

The purpose of this dissertation was to explore the link between childhood trauma and addiction according to professionals. Five professionals working within the field of addiction were recruited and participated in interviews. The professionals were a family therapist, gestalt psychotherapist, counsellor, social worker and counselling psychologist. The interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. The transcriptions were analysed through thematic analysis. The findings included three main themes all with their respective subthemes. These were “It’s the same experience but experienced differently”, “Common denominator? Pain” and Intervention at all levels of the ecosystem. The findings revealed how the same experience of trauma can bring about different effects in two individuals due to the subjective nature of trauma. Participants also highlighted the commonality of pain and painful feelings in all traumatic experiences and the presence of painful life events amongst individuals with an addiction. Finally, participants stressed how trauma intervention needs to be present at all levels of a person’s ecosystem in order to prevent persons who have gone through childhood trauma from progressing towards addiction.