Patrick Teahan says ‘quiet’ family trauma can mirror ‘big T’ symptoms

What was said

"Had a tricky family sitting down to somebody who had a very blatantly abusive family, the symptoms are exactly the same. There's anxiety, there's depression, and neither party knows how to do intimacy."

Clinical social worker Patrick Teahan argues that less visible forms of childhood trauma — including emotionally detached or “performative” families — can produce adult symptoms comparable to those associated with more overt abuse. He frames this as a critique of the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) study, which he says can skew public understanding towards only ‘extreme’ categories of adversity.