Experts involved in the so-called talking therapies have known for decades that our childhood has a huge bearing on our lives as adults. It has become somewhat fashionable to dismiss these ideas as little more than unproven and subjective psycho-babble. Increasingly however, advances in science and technology are beginning to offer lines of evidence in support of the claim that stressors in childhood increase the risk of unhealthy stress responses later in life.

Anxiety disorders and...