In recent years, the concept of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) has helped many of us find language for the difficulties we experienced in our early lives. The original ACEs study (Felitti et al., 1998) revealed a clear link between childhood adversity, such as neglect, abuse, or household dysfunction, and later challenges in physical and mental health.
For many, reading about ACEs is a moment of recognition: “So this is why I feel the way I do.” It validates what may have felt invisible or dismissed in the past.
And yet, as powerful as the ACEs framework is, it also has limitations. When we reduce complex lives to a single score, we risk oversimplifying and even pathologising. Two people with the same “score” may have entirely different inner worlds, levels of resilience, and outcomes. The ACEs questionnaire captures events, but not meaning. It tells us what happened, but not how it was experienced.
The Subjective Nature of Experience
Sometimes we minimise our own struggles by comparing them to others. We may say, “I didn’t have it as bad as they did.” But trauma and adversity are profoundly subjective.
The same event can leave one person deeply scarred while another may carry it differently. This is not weakness or strength; it is the result of many intersecting factors: our temperament, the presence (or absence) of supportive adults, cultural context, our neurotype, even genetic and biological differences.
For example, a child with ADHD who also experiences Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD) may feel rejection or criticism with an intensity that another child, perhaps neurotypical or dyslexic, might not. Neither experience is “better” or “worse.” Each is simply different.
This is why ACE scores cannot tell the whole story. They measure exposure, but not impact.
The Power Threat Meaning Framework
This is where the Power Threat Meaning Framework (PTMF), developed by Lucy Johnstone and Mary Boyle (2018), offers a vital contribution. Instead of asking “What is wrong with you?” the PTMF asks:
- What has happened to you? (How is power operating in your life?)
- How did it affect you? (What kinds of threats did it pose?)
- What sense did you make of it? (What meaning did you give to those experiences?)
- What did you have to do to survive? (What strategies helped you cope?)
These questions shift the focus away from labels and scores, toward understanding and validating our individual stories. They remind us that our reactions are not evidence of personal failure, but natural responses to environments that shaped us.
Repair and Resilience
Another limitation of the ACEs framework is that it can feel deterministic, as though a high score seals our fate. But research into resilience offers a more hopeful truth: adversity does not affect everyone in the same way.
Protective factors such as a nurturing relationship, a teacher who believed in us, or later experiences of therapy can buffer the impact of adversity. What’s more, resilience is not a fixed trait. It can be cultivated and strengthened over time, within the right support environments.
This helps explain why two people with similar histories may walk different paths. One may struggle with chronic anxiety, another may find ways to harness adversity into empathy and creativity. Both responses are valid. Both tell us something important about how the human spirit adapts.
How Therapy Can Help
We cannot change what happened in our pasts. But therapy can help us change how we carry those experiences within us.
In the safety of a therapeutic relationship, we can:
- Explore how our environments shaped us without falling into self-blame.
- Revisit the meanings we made of our childhood experiences and gently rewrite those stories.
- Build emotional intelligence to better understand our own reactions and the reactions of others.
- Learn compassion, not just for ourselves but for those around us.
When we begin to understand adversity through the lens of ACEs and PTMF, our perspective softens. Instead of saying, “They’re overreacting,” we might think, “Something has happened to them. That’s why they respond this way.”
This shift fosters empathy and reduces judgment, not only toward others, but toward ourselves.
A Gentle Reflection
If you’d like, you might pause for a moment and reflect:
- What happened to you that still shapes how you see yourself or the world?
- What meanings did you give those experiences at the time, and do they still serve you now?
- What strategies did you develop to survive? Can you see them now with compassion, even if they no longer help you?
- Who or what, in your life now, helps you repair and build resilience?
There are no right or wrong answers here. Only an invitation to notice with kindness.
Closing Thought
Our lives are not defined by a score. They are shaped by stories, by the power we were subjected to, the meanings we made, and the ways we survived.
Therapy offers us the chance to revisit those stories, to soften their hold, and to create new narratives of resilience and growth.
Because while we cannot change what happened, we can change how we live with it. And in doing so, we not only heal ourselves, but deepen our empathy for others.
References
- Felitti, V. J., Anda, R. F., et al. (1998). Relationship of childhood abuse and household dysfunction to many of the leading causes of death in adults. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 14(4), 245–258.
- Johnstone, L., & Boyle, M. (2018). The Power Threat Meaning Framework. British Psychological Society.
- Ungar, M. (2012). The Social Ecology of Resilience. Springer.
