Your claim was that child abuse and trauma have barely any influence on adult life. This is clearly an extraordinary claim, that requires evidence to be taken seriously.

There have been significant longitudinal studies that comprehensively measure many dimensions of well-being over an amazingly long time-frame and these also support this claim.

A good book on these studies and what we might learn from is Aging Well: Surprising Guideposts to a Happier Life from the Landmark Study of Adult Development by George E. Vaillant.

Otherwise I wouldn't dismiss claims from 'What we can change and what we can't' easily just because not enough refs are quoted. Read for yourself. Also you migth want to look at lukeprogs http://lesswrong.com/lw/3nn/scientific_selfhelp_the_state_of_our_knowledge/