The American Psychological Society has written a paper about the development of a new diagnosis for childhood trauma Read
"While PTSD is a good definition for acute trauma in adults, it doesn't apply well to children, who are often traumatized in the context of relationships," says Boston University Medical Center psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk, MD, one of the group's co-leaders. "Because children's brains are still developing, trauma has a much more pervasive and long-range influence on their self-concept, on their sense of the world and on their ability to regulate themselves."
