By Angela Fultz, MA LPC-S, Endorsed Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Mentor, and Ashleigh Kraft, MA LPC-S, Endorsed Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Mentor.

Article highlights:

*This study indicates Child Parent Psychotherapy treatment is biologically protective

*CPP outcomes were better than control group despite the control group families having lower rates of poverty

*Information for those seeking training in Child Parent Psychotherapy

It is widely known and accepted that experiencing trauma at a young age has a profound impact on a child’s brain, development, relationships, and mental health (Felitti, et al., 1998, Bush, 2024; Shonkoff et al., 2009; Zhang et al., 2023). There is ample research and evidence in the field to reflect that early adversity leads to and accelerates the disease process (Grummitt et al., 2021). Experiencing trauma and overwhelming stress during developmentally sensitive periods has a far-reaching impact on a developing brain. The impact is long lasting if intervention is not offered, hence the importance of early intervention.

A new study coming out of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Well Institute for Neurosciences, University of California San Francisco is showing groundbreaking results that when parents participate in Child-Parent Psychotherapy (CPP), a child’s epigenetic age acceleration is slowed. The findings suggest that supporting healthy parent-child relationships may reduce children’s biological signs of stress exposure, potentially benefiting their future health.” (Sullivan, et al., 2024) This is the first study of its kind to reflect the biological impact of a psychosocial intervention.

The study was conducted with two groups – one receiving CPP and those who did not. Both groups consisted of low-income dyads of mothers and children ranging from 2-6 years old who had experienced one or more events of interpersonal trauma such as community violence, domestic violence, caregiver death, etc. The group receiving CPP consisted of 76% Latino families with a lower income average and only 58% of parents had a high school degree or higher; while the non-CPP group was a weighted, propensity-matched community-comparison sample consisting of approximately 40% Latino families with a higher income average, and over 95% of the parents completing a high school degree or higher.

This is important to note because it is believed that families who have fewer financial resources and less access to education are more likely to experience higher levels of stress. The group not receiving treatment with more access to resources should have, by every commonly held expectation, shown better results at the end of the study. Instead, results showed that the children receiving CPP intervention had biological markers showing a slower rate of aging than the group not receiving CPP treatment. Child Parent Psychotherapy intervention offset the biological impact of trauma on children’s health despite multiple risk factors. The societal and policy implications are significant and cannot be ignored.

Child Parent Psychotherapy is an evidenced based model of intervention for children prenatal – five years old that directly addresses the trauma while also including the caregiver in nearly all sessions to heal two generations concurrently. The model focuses on helping parents to restore/enhance safety and help the child return to an appropriate developmental trajectory all while helping both the parent and child organize a traumatic experience. Both parents and children show a reduced rate of trauma symptoms after receiving this intervention (Hagan, et al. 2017)

Clinicians seeking training in Child-Parent Psychotherapy may contact the Oklahoma Association of Infant Mental Health for training opportunities as the next learning collaborative for this model will begin in Feb 2025. Applications for this training will be released September 23rd, 2024.

To learn more about CPP, visit https://childparentpsychotherapy.com/. The study reference can be found here: https://journals.sagepub.com/…/10.1177/09567976241260247

 

References:

Bush N. R. (2024). Programming the next generation of prenatal programming of stress research: A review and suggestions for the future of the field. Development and Psychopathology. Advance online publication.

Bush N. R., Jones-Mason K., Coccia M., Caron Z., Alkon A., Thomas M., Coleman-Phox K., Wadhwa P. D., Laraia B. A., Adler N. E., Epel E. S. (2017). Effects of pre- and postnatal maternal stress on infant temperament and autonomic nervous system reactivity and regulation in a diverse, low-income population. Development and Psychopathology, 29(5), 1553–1571.

Grummitt L. R., Kreski N. T., Kim S. G., Platt J., Keyes K. M., McLaughlin K. A. (2021). Association of childhood adversity with morbidity and mortality in us adults: A systematic review. JAMA Pediatrics, 175(12), 1269–1278.

Hagan, M., Browne, D., Sulik, M., Gosh Ippen, C. Bush, N., Lieberman, A. (2017) Parent and Child Trauma Symptoms During Child-Parent Psychotherapy: A prospective Cohort Study of Dyadic Change. Journal of Traumatic Stress December 2017, 30, 690–697

Shonkoff J. P., Boyce W. T., McEwen B. S. (2009). Neuroscience, molecular biology, and the childhood roots of health disparities: Building a new framework for health promotion and disease prevention. JAMA, 301(21), 2252–2259.

Sullivan, A., Merrill, S., Bush, N., Konwar, C., Rivera, L., MacIsaac, J., Lieberman, A., Kobor, M., (2024). Intervening

After Trauma: Child-Parent Psychotherapy Treatment is Associated with Lower Pediatric Epigenetic Age Acceleration. Advance online publication

Zhang Z. Z., Moeckel C., Mustafa M., Pham H., Olson A. E., Mehta D., Dorn L. D., Engeland C. G., Shenk C. E. (2023). The association of epigenetic age acceleration and depressive and anxiety symptom severity among children recently exposed to substantiated maltreatment. Journal of Psychiatric Research, 165, 7–13.

Zheng S. C., Breeze C. E., Beck S., Dong D., Zhu T., Ma L., Ye W., Zhang G., Teschendorff A. E. (2019). EpiDISH web server: Epigenetic dissection of intra-sample-heterogeneity with online GUI. Bioinformatics, 36(6), 1950–1951.