Natacha Godbout, Ph.D., is a licensed clinical psychologist, researcher and professor at the Department of Sexology at the Université du Québec à Montréal. She has devoted her career to understanding interpersonal violence, treating its effects, and preventing its recurrence. In addition to be the director of the TRAuma and CouplE Research and Intervention Unit (TRACE), Dr. Godbout also shares her work to the scientific community through her articles, her participation to conferences, and the book Le trauma complexe : Comprendre, évaluer et intervenir, first French-language textbook on complex trauma. She also exerts efforts to make science accessible to the general population through her social media.
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Although a majority of adults aim to experiment a satisfying intimate relationship, instability, marital distress, sexual difficulties and intimate partner violence are common. Childhood interpersonal trauma can leave long-lasting effects on psychological and relational functioning.
The rates of interpersonal traumas (childhood violence and abuse, sexual assault, complex trauma, polytrauma, etc.) are alarming, affecting up to 70 % of the population. Victims are at risk of revictimization and to suffer from a constellation of intra- and interpersonal severe and persistent problems.
Child abuse, neglect or other parental violence can impact caretaker-child attachment systems, resulting in chronic, negative expectations and perceptions of other people (i.e., negative relational schema), leading to safety, trust, esteem, intimacy, and control issues. Survivors of early… more
Childhood interpersonal trauma appears to impact what are described as self-capacities (e.g., Briere & Runtz, 2002). Self-capacities are thought to develop in the context of positive parent-child attachment experiences and refer to the extent to which an individual is able to accomplish 3… more
Faced with interpersonal trauma, the victim is typically in emergency state, which activate biological systems associated with survival, produce great anxiety, and narrows awareness his/her inner and outer world, for the benefit of survival mechanisms. The memories of trauma, emotions footprints… more
This project aims to understand the relationship between interactions among parents of young children and their psychological and couple well-being, and to compare the different trajectories in terms of family history of each parent.
A research project funded by the CIHR is currently being conducted by our research unit and aims to update the knowledge of existing data and research needs on men who are victims of violence.
