Direct experience or witnessing of repeated and severe episodes of interpersonal violence and.Exposure. The child or adolescent has experienced or witnessed multiple or prolonged adverse events over a period of at least one year beginning in childhood or early adolescence, including: Bessel van der Kolk and the staff at The Trauma Center at JRI have been researching “Disorders of Extreme Stress” in children for a decade. Together with the National Child Traumatic Stress Network, they proposed the inclusion of Developmental Trauma Disorder into the DSM-5, to be published in 2012. At this point the proposal is being considered and research trials are underway. The disorder has not yet been included in the drafts of this manual. However, professionals treating attachment disorder and trauma in children are supporting this diagnosis and are more frequently using it to describe what they see in many clients.īelow Is the “Consensus Proposed Criteria for Developmental Trauma Disorder”Ī.
In 2009, professionals researching and treating Complex Trauma in children proposed a new diagnosis of Developmental Trauma Disorder be included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual to capture the dysfunctions experienced by children and adolescents exposed to chronic traumatic stress. Some of these children did not meet the criteria for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), the disorder in the DSM-IV that most closely relates. Others had been diagnosed with a laundry list of unrelated disorders because their symptoms and behaviors meet the criteria for everything from Oppositional Defiance Disorder to Autism Spectrum Disorders. Yet these children’s problems have developed in the context of trauma and developmental disruptions. Because no other diagnostic options are available, the symptoms professionals see often lead them to diagnosing unrelated disorders such as bipolar disorder, ADHD, conduct disorder, RAD, autism, and a host of anxiety disorders.ĭr.