Abstract:

Childhood traumatic experiences have severe or mild negative effects in the continuation of the child’s life at individual and social level. The study aims to determine the effects of childhood traumatic experiences on the creativity and alexithymia characteristics of individuals in young adulthood. The study used relative screening method and included 804 individuals aged between 18 and 35. The Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ), Creative Personality Characteristics Scale and Toronto Alexiasian Scale (TAS) were used to collect data. As a result of the study, a negative significant relationship was found between all subscales of traumatic experiences and creative personality characteristics. As traumatic experiences increased the personality characteristics decreased. The highest correlation was observed between traumatic experiences and creative personality characteristics in the "emotional negligence and abuse" scale. However, a positive significant relationship was found between three subscales of childhood traumatic experiences and general alexithymia and the highest correlation with alexithymia was in "sexual abuse" scale. This study revealed the damaging impact of childhood traumatic experiences on healthy recognition and expression of individuals' creativity and emotions. The study findings are expected to contribute to the evaluation and prevention of individuals' exposure to traumatic experiences in childhood and to future studies on this matter.