Interrupting the Intergenerational Transmission of Traumatic Stress: Identifying Parental Targets for Intervention by Looking Under the Skin

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PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT Parental psychopathology, including traumatic stress, presents significant risk to children’s development and to their ability to benefit from evidence-based mental health services when needed. Child interventions require parents to have specific and controlled responses to child distress and challenging behaviors, yet these are the very moments that evoke negative emotions in parents. The emotional dysregulation that underlies traumatic stress and related disorders may account for this hindrance in child development and response-to-treatment, and thus, more refined work on parent emotion regulation (ER) is sorely needed. The proposed research and training will focus on enhancing the field’s knowledge of emotional processes and response-to-intervention in parents who have experienced trauma. This is a particularly important population in which to study parental ER, as the emotional symptoms of traumatic stress are diverse, ranging from anger to horror to emotional numbing, and often arise unexpectedly. The proposed research will use neurophysiological assessment (EEG) to elucidate emotional arousal, motivation, and regulatory processes in N = 60 parents who experienced interpersonal trauma during their own childhoods, and who currently have preschool-aged children (3- to 6-year-olds). The project design will include a clinical trial and use of EEG biomarkers to measure response to a trauma-informed parenting intervention program. In order to conduct the proposed research and to prepare the candidate for the next phase of her career as an independent scientist, the proposed training provides guidance from an exceptional mentorship team in the following goals: (1) enhance depth of knowledge and conceptualization of emotion, parenting, and traumatic stress by applying biobehavioral and process-oriented, dyadic models to this work (2) expand depth and breadth of knowledge and skills in psychophysiological methods, (3) develop the ability to conduct independent research in the applied stages of translational science, (4) augment methodological and statistical skills, and (5) increase opportunities for and skills in manuscript-writing and publication. The proposed training will support the candidate’s long-term career goal to conduct translational work that integrates novel, basic research on parental emotional processes with applied work on child and family resilience, with the ultimate goal of preventing the intergenerational transmission of traumatic stress.