Abstract
Early childhood experiences of surgery (ECES) are a type of natural experiment into the
long-term effects of a highly dysregulating shock or trauma. This study inquires into how
ECES is experienced and understood over time into mature adulthood. The research
examines the academic literature related to childhood surgery and hospitalisation from the
perspectives of medical models, developmental psychology and psychotherapeutic responses,
as well as using narrative approaches (including allegorical story-telling) to discuss the topic
of meaning-making. An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis is used to examine the
subjective experiences of three adult participants who have experienced ECES, the ways in
which they make meaning from their experience, and the role psychotherapy can play in
facilitating a new awareness of past experience. The findings point towards ECES as an
often-overlooked source of psychic difficulty or necessary adaptation that may instantiate
early coping mechanisms, which in turn become habitual pathways for experiencing life.
