Psychologists studying adults found out as early as the 1930’s that bad childhood experiences were the precursors of neurotic patterns of suffering and distress that carried forward in time and were observable in adulthood. Clinical work with sex and other offenders shows the same pattern:
pain and upset associated with unmet psychological needs in childhood carry forward as seeds for internal suffering of an enduring kind, such as loneliness, low self-esteem, anxiety and depression, or the expression of antisocial behaviours.