Prior to the 1950s, there was little systematic investigation into the effects of traumatic events on children or adolescents. Excepting the early work of Anna Freud on the effects of war on children (see Freud & Burlington, 1943), little scientific interest was evident. This is not to suggest that children and adolescents were free of trauma; to the contrary, their lives were characterized by considerable turmoil that today would be described as “out of the range of usual human experience” (American Psychiatric Association, 1987, p. 250). However, consistent with the “adultmorphic” conception of children that was prevalent at the time, children were viewed as miniature adults capable of handling the multitude of stresses to which they were subjected (Ollendick & Hersen, 1989).

Jane M. Keppel-Benson

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in Children and Adolescents

ivySCI AI Smartly Parses PDF, Answers Researchers' Questions, and Helps You Understand Papers in Seconds

Journal Info