You cannot grow a healthy plant from rotted roots
Las heridas más persistentes de la vida adulta rara vez se presentan con su verdadero nombre. La psicóloga Mariana Cordiviola sostiene, con el respaldo de décadas de investigación científica, que los patrones emocionales forjados en la infancia —a menudo en silencio, sin palabras ni conciencia— son la raíz de gran parte del sufrimiento psicológico que las personas arrastran hasta la edad adulta. La ciencia sobre las Experiencias Adversas en la Infancia confirma que lo que ocurrió entonces no es metáfora: es biología, es psicología, es historia que vive en el cuerpo. Y sin embargo, el horizonte que propone esta mirada no es la resignación, sino el regreso urgente y compasivo al presente.
- La ansiedad, la baja autoestima y los conflictos relacionales repetidos no son problemas del presente: son ecos de dinámicas aprendidas en la infancia, cuando el niño carecía de recursos para comprenderlas o defenderse de ellas.
- La investigación sobre Experiencias Adversas en la Infancia documenta con rigor que el abuso, el abandono y la inestabilidad familiar elevan de forma medible el riesgo de depresión, TEPT, conductas de riesgo y enfermedades físicas crónicas a lo largo de toda la vida.
- El cerebro infantil, extraordinariamente permeable a la experiencia emocional, convierte lo que se le da y lo que se le niega en creencias profundas sobre el propio valor y en estrategias de supervivencia que, décadas después, se vuelven fuente de sufrimiento.
- Cordiviola advierte contra la trampa de esperar una crisis mayor para comenzar a vivir: el antídoto al miedo no es el análisis interminable del pasado, sino el afecto, la presencia y la decisión de habitar este momento.
Los problemas que las personas llevan a terapia casi nunca se presentan como lo que realmente son. Llegan disfrazados de ansiedad persistente, relaciones que fracasan una y otra vez, incapacidad para poner límites. La psicóloga Mariana Cordiviola lleva años escuchando esas historias y sabe dónde buscar. "La raíz", afirma, "está siempre, siempre, siempre en la infancia. No se puede hacer crecer una planta sana desde raíces podridas."
Los primeros años de vida son el período en que el cerebro es más vulnerable a la experiencia emocional. El niño no procesa el mundo con lógica, sino con el cuerpo y el sentimiento: lo que se le ofrece y lo que se le niega, la seguridad y su ausencia. El abandono, la exigencia constante, el miedo, la negligencia emocional raramente quedan como recuerdos nítidos. Se convierten en algo más profundo: creencias sobre el propio valor, formas de vincularse con los demás, estrategias de supervivencia aprendidas antes de tener palabras para nombrarlas. En su momento, esos patrones protegieron. En la adultez, suelen convertirse en la fuente del sufrimiento.
La investigación científica ha trazado este mapa con precisión. Los estudios sobre Experiencias Adversas en la Infancia —abuso físico o emocional, negligencia, violencia doméstica, inestabilidad familiar— demuestran que estas condiciones tempranas generan consecuencias medibles y duraderas: mayor riesgo de depresión, ansiedad, estrés postraumático, conductas de riesgo y enfermedades físicas crónicas. La conexión entre lo que ocurrió entonces y lo que ocurre ahora no es una metáfora. Es biológica, psicológica y real.
Pero la propuesta de Cordiviola no es excavar el pasado sin fin. Es vivir. "Si tienes miedo", dice, "el antídoto es el afecto. ¿Para qué estás aquí? Para vivir. Es terrible que la gente espere un diagnóstico catastrófico para empezar a hacerlo. Empieza ahora. Empieza este segundo." El pasado nos forma. Pero no nos posee.
The problems people bring to therapy rarely announce themselves as old wounds. They arrive dressed in the language of the present—anxiety that won't lift, a pattern of failed relationships, the inability to say no. But psychologist Mariana Cordiviola has spent enough time listening to know where to look. "No matter what someone tells me, no matter who they've met or what they've read," she says, "when a person comes to me with a problem, the root is always, always, always in childhood. You cannot grow a healthy plant from rotted roots. It's impossible. We always have to start there."
The early years of life are when the brain is most permeable to emotional experience. A child absorbs the world not through logic but through feeling—through what is given and what is withheld, through safety and its absence. Emotional neglect, the constant demand to be more than you are, abandonment, fear, the simple lack of security—these things rarely lodge in memory as clear narrative. Instead they become something deeper: beliefs about your own worth, the way you attach to others, the survival strategies you learned before you had words for them. At the time, these patterns kept you alive. In adulthood, they often become the source of your suffering.
The consequences are remarkably consistent. People develop anxiety. Their sense of self-worth erodes. They struggle to set boundaries, flinch at the possibility of rejection, find themselves repeating the same conflicts in relationship after relationship. What looks like a present-day problem is usually the echo of a dynamic learned long ago, when you had no resources to understand it or defend yourself against it.
Scientific research has mapped this terrain with precision. Studies of what researchers call Adverse Childhood Experiences—physical or emotional abuse, neglect, domestic violence, family instability—show that these early conditions create measurable, lasting consequences. People who experienced them carry higher risks of depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress, risky behaviors, and chronic physical illness throughout their lives. The research is consistent and peer-reviewed. The connection between what happened then and what happens now is not metaphorical. It is biological and psychological and real.
Cordiviola's prescription, though, is not to excavate the past endlessly. It is to live. "If you're afraid," she says, "the antidote to fear is affection—kisses, animals, holding animals. Why are you here? To live. It's terrible when people wait for some catastrophic diagnosis before they actually begin living. Start now. Start this second." There is urgency in this. Not the frantic urgency of someone running from something, but the quiet urgency of someone who understands that this moment, right now, is the only one you have. The past shapes you. But it does not own you.
Citações Notáveis
When a person comes to me with a problem, the root is always, always, always in childhood. You cannot grow a healthy plant from rotted roots.— Mariana Cordiviola, psychologist
Why are you here? To live. Start now. Start this second.— Mariana Cordiviola, psychologist
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
If childhood is always the root, does that mean we're trapped by what happened to us before we could even understand it?
Not trapped, but shaped. The patterns we learned were solutions once—ways to survive in an environment that wasn't safe. The problem is that we keep using those solutions in a present that's different. Therapy isn't about erasing the past. It's about recognizing the pattern and choosing something else.
But how do you choose something else if your nervous system learned fear before your mind learned language?
Slowly, and with help. The body remembers what the mind forgets. That's why Cordiviola mentions affection, animals, physical presence—these things speak to the nervous system in its own language. You're not arguing your way out of childhood wounds. You're gradually teaching your body that it's safe now.
So therapy is really about retraining the body?
It's about integration. Understanding the story your childhood wrote, yes. But also creating new experiences that contradict the old ones. Safety, consistency, being heard—these become the new data your nervous system learns from.
And what about the people who can't afford therapy, or who don't have access to it?
That's the harder question. Cordiviola's advice about living now, about finding affection and presence—that's available to everyone. It's not a substitute for professional help, but it's something. Connection, even small moments of it, can begin to shift what the body believes about the world.