Abstract
 

Nearly twenty percent of children between the ages of seven and seventeen suffer from a mental health disorder each year. This staggering statistic sheds only a glimpse of light onto the silent pandemic of mental illness making its way through the population. Childhood development of mental illness and the onset of mental illness as adults are linked to childhood trauma experienced during specific windows of development that affect the child’s ability to cope and to function in a typical fashion in society. This, along with type and frequency of specific trauma types, increases the likelihood of mental illness.