'Childhood maltreatment can leave young people more sensitive to other people's anger signals later in life'
Resilience image: Hannah Jacobs
Bullying, abuse or a difficult divorce: many young people struggle with mental health problems after traumatic experiences. But why do some suffer much more than others? This is the question that Hannah Dorsman is exploring within the THRIVE project.
Within the Thrive project, led by Anne-Laura van Harmelen, Dorsman is currently working with colleagues to study more than 200 young people aged between 18 and 24, focusing on the impact of major life events in the broadest sense of the word: bullying, neglect, abuse, an accident, a difficult divorce or the death of a family member. Some young people manage to adapt well after such major events and are able to rebuild their lives. The trauma no longer plays a dominant role and forming relationships and friendships goes smoothly. In the literature, this mechanism is referred to as 'resilience'. Others struggle more quickly and develop mental health problems such as anxiety and depression, or find it difficult to connect with others. What explains this difference? Which factors contribute to resilience? These are the questions that Dorsman and her colleagues are investigating.
Taking part in the THRIVE study
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Register hereSignificant events
For recruiting participants, the researchers do not use the word trauma; they prefer to speak of major events. ‘Many young people experience the word “trauma” as heavy or stigmatising,’ says Dorsman. ‘By speaking of “significant events”, we better reflect the broad range of experiences included in the study.’
Sensitivity to threat
As part of her doctoral research, Dorsman is specifically studying how the brain processes emotions and social feedback, as the literature shows that these can be influenced by traumatic experiences. ‘We see that young people who were maltreated in childhood – and therefore always had to be alert to external threat – may also later in life be more sensitive to angry signals from others,’ says Dorsman. ‘In their unsafe home environment that was a useful strategy, but in a safe environment it can have the opposite effect. For example, you might wrongly interpret a friend’s look as anger, feel threatened, and react from that emotion.’
'How you interpret social feedback affects your relationships'
Social feedback
Dorsman also sees in the literature that young people who experienced neglect in childhood are less receptive to positive social feedback, such as compliments or an encouraging look. ‘Because they are not used to it and therefore do not recognise it, or never dared to expect it in the past to avoid disappointment.’ This can lead them into a vicious circle, she explains. ‘It is precisely recognising social feedback and adapting your behaviour accordingly that helps you to function better socially. If this does not happen, it also affects your social relationships.’ And yet friendships in particular have a protective effect after traumatic childhood experiences.
Participation
Young people who sign up for the THRIVE study take part for a little over a year. They complete a questionnaire, have a telephone interview with the researchers and spend an afternoon at the LUMC for tasks in the MRI scanner. ‘There we look at how their brains respond to stress and what happens when they are confronted with social feedback.’ In addition, every three months the young people fill in a questionnaire in which they indicate how much stress they experience, what their social support looks like and how their mental health is developing.
WhatsApp, TikTok and letters
‘The study demands quite a lot from participants, so we are now learning more about how we can keep young people engaged,’ says Dorsman. To do this, she and her colleagues, for example, consulted the youth panel of Augeo, a foundation committed to helping children grow up resilient. ‘When we told these young people that we keep participants informed about the study by sending them an email – which we also send at eight o’clock in the morning – some of them laughed. Few young people check their email often. That’s why we have now started making contact via WhatsApp.’ Other tips from the panel: recruit young people by approaching them directly in the street and inform participants via TikTok. Or, a surprising piece of advice: send a letter to let them know that you appreciate their participation. ‘Young people hardly ever receive post, so if we send them a card, it feels special.’
'We investigate how we can use our knowledge to develop or improve interventions'
What goes well
Much research into young people’s mental health, Dorsman notes, mainly focuses on what goes wrong, the burden people experience. ‘We focus on why, in some people, things go well, even when they have gone through something very difficult. We investigate what we can learn from that, and how we can eventually use this knowledge to develop or improve interventions.’
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