We would wish to think that we’ve built our environments in such how that they minimize the factors that would result in psychological and behavioral disturbances among individuals. Thus, optimizing our psychological state. But statistics tell us that the bulk of our population’s psychological state is essentially subjected to negative environments.
Complications caused by a negative environment
For many children, symptoms of psychological disorders are linked to the negative stressors within the environment. In the United States alone, one in every five children suffers severe physical abuse, and one in every group of 5 lives below the poverty level. Additionally, psychosocial structures in cities where there’s poor housing expose children to violence that would detriment their psychological state. (You can imagine what percentage of children in other countries which have far lower economic status and much fewer programs for child protection are subjected to negative stressors.)
Both of the above stressors are reflected as traumatic experiences to children that would resurface as psychological disorders during adulthood.
A negative or a positive environment during childhood explains why there are adults who are more likely than to not develop psychological disorders and there are those that aren’t suffering from these in the least.
For example, children who repeatedly experienced sexual trauma or sexual assault are presumably to develop dissociative disorders like a split personality disorder. the speed of victimization within intimate relationships only reinforces the dissociative response. Also, repetitive exposure to violence or to the activities of a dysfunctional environment could also contribute to the event of severe dissociative disorders. These mental illnesses root from the child’s effort to deny the violence, abuse, or trauma they experience as coping mechanisms so on protect their mental wellness. However, failure to completely recover from these experiences would result in the impairment of his psychological wellness and even his social and emotional well-being.
Parental deprivations
Some researchers assumed that the massive difference in the number of psychological disorders being treated lately as compared to prevalence within the past century is essentially contributed by dysfunctional family structures and parental deprivations. Indifference and neglect by familial figures, maternal-social deprivations, isolation, and separation from parents are viewed because the root causes of psychological disorders like depressions, retardation, psychomotor impairments, and therefore the manifestations of autistic-like behaviors among children.
Pathogenic Parent-Child Relationship
The traumatic interpersonal relationship between a parent or a parent-figure and a child is viewed as a negative environment for the child’s growth and development. This relationship only means their relationship is structured within the manner that it damages a child’s psychological well-being. These give stress to certain beliefs that are psychologically unfavorable to the kid like irrational beliefs on self-blame, irrational explanations on traumatic experiences, maladaptive behaviors, unconscious guilt, shame, and doubt about oneself. These beliefs are very powerful and will lead the kid to overgeneralize negative incidents.
Children experience all kinds of negative environments including war and violence, daily stress, economic problems, and accelerating negative effects of technological changes. But among these, the foremost aggravated is that the disabling relationship he has together with his immediate environment- his parents, his family, and his direct interaction with his society. Above everything else, there’s a requirement to switch these negative environments so as to develop children with a better psychological state and within the future, adults who can readily adapt to the stressors from their environments.
