How a therapy called CBITS helps children who have experienced trauma
By Molly Hagan, Child Mind Institute, Image: Unsplash via Crowdstack, February 7, 2025
Research shows that childhood exposure to trauma is far more common than one might think, with two-thirds of kids having had at least one adverse experience and more than 1 in 5 having had three or more.
Living through an upsetting event can feel isolating — even when that event is shared, like a school shooting or a wildfire. (Because trauma is a clinical term, many clinicians don’t use the word traumatic until they understand the impact of the event on the child.) This is partly because people process events differently. And an event that is experienced as traumatic for one child may not be traumatic for another. But when a child does experience symptoms of trauma, it can affect their life and functioning in a host of ways.
“Trauma symptoms can be really, really disruptive to kids across many aspects of their lives,” says Katie Peinovich, LCSW, a licensed clinical social worker at the Child Mind Institute. Symptoms can affect kids in school and make it hard for them to think clearly, she says, and hurt their relationships with family and friends. Trauma symptoms also can affect their self-esteem and how they view themselves and the world.
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