January 2014 , Volume 8, No. 1 Interpersonal Acceptance Inside This Issue ISIPAR Congress 1-3 Review of Childhood 4-6 Victimization’s Tragic Legacy ISIPAR Member’s Activity Page 7 Review of Human Bonding 8-11 Election Results 2014 11 PARTheory and Evidence Make 12 a Difference in Human Life 1 We are delighted to invite you... Call For Papers: Early Abstract Submission ends February 28, 2014 Final Submission Deadline is April 15, 2014 Refer to www.isiparmoldova2014.org for Instructions on Submission. Contact Karen Ripoll-Nuñez ([email protected]) with questions. Conference Registration must be paid when abstract is accepted. 2 Fifth International Congress on Interpersonal Acceptance and Rejection June 24– June 27, 2014 in Chisinau, Moldova The International Society for Interpersonal Acceptance and Rejection (ISIPAR) has the pleasure to announce that the Fifth International Congress on Interpersonal Acceptance and Rejection (ICIAR) will be held in Chisinau, Moldova, June 24–June 27, 2014. The Congress will focus on the study and applied practice of interpersonal acceptance and rejection. Areas of particular focus will be teacher acceptance- rejection, intimate partner acceptance-rejection, ostracism and social exclusion, mother/father love, psychotherapy and psycho-educational interventions, neurobio- logical concomitants of perceived rejection, as well as many other topics. This is your personal invitation. We look forward to seeing you there! Prospective participants are encouraged to submit proposals for papers, symposia, workshops, and poster presentations on any aspect of interpersonal acceptance- rejection. Details about abstract submission and conference registration can be found at http://www.isiparmoldova2014.org/. Relevant Topics Include: Acceptance-rejection in Educational implications of Resilience & coping with intimate adult relationships teacher, peer, and perceived rejection parental acceptance- • Acceptance-rejection in the rejection Psychological and emotional context of immigration & maltreatment acculturation Father love Psychotherapy and psycho- • Acceptance-rejection in the Ostracism & social exclusion educational context of adult offspring’s interventions caregiving of aging parents Parental acceptance- rejection Rejection sensitivity • Acceptance-rejection of children with special needs Peer & sibling acceptance- Relation between rejection acceptance-rejection & Affectionate communication attachment Methodological issues in the • Clinical and developmental study of interpersonal Victimization and bullying implications of interpersonal acceptance-rejection in school age children acceptance-rejection Neurobiological And others Cultural & social contexts of concomitants of acceptance-rejection perceived rejection 3 Childhood Victimization’s Tragic Legacy: A Biopsychosocial Perspective A Review of Kathleen Kendall-Tackett Reviewed by Julian Ford University of Connecticut [email protected] If indeed “the body keeps the Kendall-Tackett. The book begins with a helpful score” (van der Kolk, 1994) when psychological primer on the effects of childhood victimization trauma occurs in the lives of children, a and persistent post-traumatic stress on the thorough understanding of how children’s brain and body, which is particularly informative bodies are affected by trauma and post- regarding the relationship of traumatic traumatic stress is essential for clinicians, victimization and alterations in the body’s researchers, and educators who work with crucial defenses against illness, the body’s children – and for those who work with adults immune system. A dysregulated immune who either were exposed to psychological system not only cannot ward off disease trauma in their own childhoods or who are effectively, but also may generate harmful parenting and caring for traumatized children. inflammatory responses that are associated When childhood psychological trauma with some of the most costly and debilitating involves actual or perceived parental rejection (and potentially life-threatening) diseases. A (Rohner, 2004), this betrayal of trust body overburdened in childhood by trauma- (Goldsmith, Freyd, & DePrince, 2012) – whether related stress reactivity may place the individual intentional or unintentional – is associated with at risk not only for a lifetime of psychological not only psychosocial but also profound problems such as depression or PTSD, but also biological alterations that include involuntary for severe medical illnesses such as cancers, survival-based adaptations by the brain (Ford, asthma, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and 2009). The psychosocial sequelae of childhood auto-immune syndromes. While there is still interpersonal rejection and victimization are much to be known about how childhood well documented by hundreds of empirical victimization alters – or is altered by – the body studies (D’Andrea, Ford, Stolbach, Spinazzola, & and brain’s responses to stress and pathogens, van der Kolk, 2012; Ford, 2010; Khaleque & this book systematically reviews studies which Rohner, 2012). The toll that childhood rejection elucidate several pathways potentially linking and victimization take on physical health and childhood victimization to lifetime risk of illness. lifetime vulnerability to medical illness has These include impaired sleep, substance use, become increasingly clear from findings such as smoking, eating disorders, suicidality, high-risk those of the Adverse Childhood Experiences sexual behaviors, shame, hostility, isolation, (www.acestudy.org). poverty, homelessness, revictimization, depression, PTSD, pain, and perinatal For an integration of these two vast but compromise to maternal health and mother- essential research literatures, readers can turn child bonding. The review of pain’s role as both to the 2nd Edition of Treating the Lifetime a sequelae of victimization and debilitating Effects of Childhood Victimization by Kathleen 4 health problem is particularly illuminating. acceptance and rejection framework to better The book concludes with an introduction understand how childhood victimization can to considerations in screening patients for lead to a lifetime of health problems – or to abuse history and clinical management of healing and recovery. depression, PTSD, and pain in the health care setting. Although potentially helpful as a broad References overview for physical healthcare providers in C. A. Courtois & J. D. Ford (2013). Treating training or practice, this section lacks the complex trauma: A sequenced relationship-based thoroughness of earlier ones. It fails to do approach. New York: Guilford. justice to the complexities of managing the D’Andrea, W., Ford, J. D., Stolbach, B., primary healthcare of adults who have widely Spinazzola, J., & van der Kolk, B. (2012). Understanding varying histories of childhood (often also interpersonal trauma in children; Why we need a developmentally appropriate trauma diagnosis. American adulthood) victimization, and even greater Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 82, 187-200. DOI: 10.1111/ varieties of both impairment and resilience. The j.1939-0025.2012.01154.x field also has developed a Ford, J. D. (2009). Neurobiological broader array of evidence and developmental research: clinical based pharmacological “This book systematically implications. In C. A. Courtois & J. D. and psychotherapy reviews studies which elucidate Ford (Eds.), Treating complex treatments for victimization traumatic stress disorders : an several pathways potentially evidence-based guide. (pp. 31-58). -related PTSD and New York: Guilford Press. depression in childhood linking childhood victimization Ford, J. D. (2010). Complex adult (Ford & Courtois, 2013) to lifetime risk of illness.” sequelae of early life exposure to and adulthood (Courtois & psychological trauma. In R. A. Ford, 2013) than the Lanius, E. Vermetten, & C. Pain modalities described in this section. (Eds.), The hidden epidemic: The impact of early life trauma on health and disease (pp. 69-76). New York: Although she does not explicitly refer to Cambridge University Press. the role of perceived parental acceptance and Ford, J. D. & Courtois, C. A. (Eds.) (July 15, rejection in the origins or sequelae of childhood 2013). Treating complex traumatic stress disorders in victimization, the constructs are clearly relevant children and adolescents: Scientific foundations and in all of the domains discussed by Kendall- therapeutic models. New York: Guilford. Tackett. For example, parental criticism is noted Goldsmith, R. E., Freyd, J. J., & DePrince, A. P. as potentially contributing to sleep problems. (2012). Betrayal trauma: associations with psychological and physical symptoms in young adults. Journal of The research cited in this book demonstrates Interpersonal Violence, 27(3), 547-567. that parent-child relationships, parenting stress, Khaleque, A., & Rohner, R. P. (2012). and attachment security often are compromised Transnational relations between perceived parental when children are victimized and are risk (e.g., acceptance and personality dispositions of children and parental conflict, stress, disengagement) or adults: meta-analytic review. Personality and Social protective (e.g., parental responsivity, Psychology Review, 16(2), 103-115. availability, emotional support) factors for Rohner, R. P. (2004). The parental "acceptance- persistent post-victimization problems. The wide rejection syndrome": Universal correlates of perceived range of biopsychosocial domains relevant to rejection. American Psychologist,