(This blog posted on PACEs Connection on April 12, 2026.)

Emerging Research on Positive Adult Experiences Offers New Hope for Survivors of Trauma and Adversity

In the PACEs Connection community, we write and talk a lot about what infants and children need to thrive. Safe relationships. Consistent connection. A sense of belonging. The science of Positive Childhood Experiences — PCEs — has shown us that these early building blocks shape brain development, buffer the impact of adversity, and even help prevent adult mental illness.

But what about adults? What happens when those early positive experiences were missing — or when life’s adversities never stopped, and/or arrived later, in the form of toxic relationships — romantic, workplace, or otherwise — loss, trauma, or other sources of continuous toxic stress?

Positive Adult Experiences — PAEs — function remarkably similarly to Positive Childhood Experiences — PCEs

Emerging research published by the National Institutes of Health and Frontiers in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry offers a powerful and hopeful answer: positive experiences don’t stop mattering after childhood. Positive Adult Experiences — PAEs — function remarkably similarly to PCEs, reducing depression and anxiety, promoting resilience, and helping to buffer the impact of early adversity — even when adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) were high and positive childhood experiences were few.

“Healing — and preventing more adversity — are not just for children,” said Jamie Huysman, PsyD, LCSW, Founder and Executive Director of the STAR Network Foundation. “Adults who have experienced trauma — whether in childhood or later in life — can experience genuine turning points when they find safe, consistent, accepting community. The brain remains responsive to positive experiences across the entire lifespan. That is not just hopeful. That is science.”

Key positive adult experiences identified in the research include social connection and feeling genuinely understood and valued; mentorship and personal growth; community belonging and purposeful work; and active emotional healing — the kind of deep, courageous work that actively recovering survivors of toxic and abusive relationships know all too well.

“Positive childhood and adult experiences can become their own protective factors. That shift in the trajectory of a life — toward connection, belonging, and hope — has a way of attracting more of the positive. It can help break generational cycles of abuse, neglect, addiction, and the sometimes learned behaviors of helplessness and hopelessness. Healing in one generation plants seeds of healthy relationships and outcomes for the next,” offers Carey Sipp, author of “The TurnAround Mom”, a book on reparenting oneself and breaking generational cycles of addiction, neglect, and abuse.

“Through decades of my own recovery and in years of volunteer work with fellow survivors, I’ve seen firsthand the healing that comes from adults learning to trust and be accepted by each other, to commiserate, share experience, strength, and hope, and to learn to laugh together,” said Sipp, Interim Editor-at-Large and Director of Upstream Strategies at PACEs Connection.

Studies show that adults with more PCEs experience measurably less depression and anxiety. While these experiences tend to have a stronger impact on younger adults, their benefits extend across the lifespan. And unlike the early years — when children depend entirely on the adults around them to provide positive experiences — adults can actively seek them out, build them, and offer them to one another.

Setting Sail for Mental Health Awareness Month

The STAR Network Foundation is putting that science into practice in a decidedly memorable way this May — with the All STAR Cruise, departing Miami on Friday, May 1, 2026, and bringing together Survivors of Toxic and Abusive Relationships (STARs), healers, advocates, and community members for four days of connection, conversation, and renewal at sea — returning early Monday, May 4.

A special gathering at the Atlantis resort in Nassau on Saturday, May 2, will feature STAR Network International Ambassador Richard Grannon leading raw, thought-provoking discussions on trauma recovery, building resilience, and reclaiming your life — conversations designed not just to inform, but to transform.

“Every moment of genuine connection aboard that ship is the science in action,” said Huysman. “When a survivor feels truly seen, truly heard, truly safe — that is a positive adult experience. That is healing. And those moments add up.”

“For the PACEs Connection community, whose work centers on understanding both the adverse and the positive experiences that shape human lives across the lifespan, the All STAR Community Cruise represents something larger than a weekend getaway. It is a living demonstration that healing is possible — and that no survivor has to walk that path alone,” said Huysman.

For more information about the All STAR Cruise, visit: https://lnkd.in/duWJKYcV

Key Research Links

• PCEs as turning points for adult mental health after childhood adversity — Frontiers in Public Health (2023): https://www.frontiersin.org/jo…bh.2023.1223953/full
• PCEs and learned helplessness/optimism — Frontiers in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (2023): https://www.frontiersin.org/jo…ha.2023.1249529/full
• PCE landmark study — Bethell et al., JAMA Pediatrics (2019): https://jamanetwork.com/journa…/fullarticle/2749336
• PCEs and adult outcomes systematic review — PMC: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10528145/
• Science Friday overview — accessible reading for general audiences: https://www.sciencefriday.com/…ences-mental-health/

About the STAR Network Foundation

The STAR Network Foundation is a worldwide 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to the support, treatment, and prevention of attachment disorders and narcissistic abuse. Through its free peer-to-peer, anonymous meetings each weekday, annual Scars to STARs Day Summit (coming up May 22; free registration is here), and community initiatives, STAR Network makes safe, consistent, accepting connection available worldwide to Survivors of Toxic and Abusive Relationships and complex PTSD post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

About PACEs Connection

PACEs Connection — PACEs stands for Positive and Adverse Childhood Experiences — is a  62,425 member global network advancing the science of positive and adverse childhood experiences to prevent and heal trauma, build resilience, and support flourishing communities worldwide. For more information contact Dana Brown, Interim Executive Director, at dana.pacescommunities@gmail.com; or Carey Sipp, Interim Editor-at-Large and Director of Upstream Strategies and Relationships, at carey.pacescommunities@gmail.com