The list of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), developed by V. J. Felitti and a group of other researchers in 1998, comprised seven categories of adverse experience, organized into two groups: abuse (physical, psychological, or sexual) and household dysfunction (substance abuse or mental illness of a parent, domestic violence, and imprisonment of a family member). In the nearly three decades since, the list expanded to include parental separation or divorce, and physical and emotional neglect.

ACE screenings are now widely used in health and mental health settings, providing short cuts to a sketch of events in an individual’s childhood that might have implications for current health or mental health problems. However, family circumstances and events are not the only sources of severe

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