Treating posttraumatic stress disorder in children and families: Basic principles and clinical applications

Most experts an chilli and family posttraumatic stress disorder have focused their attention on ongoing child abuse and domestic violence, to the relative neglect of the more temporally delimited but equally shattering effects of disaster stress and bereavement dire to homicide. This article discusses some of the special diagnostic and treatment issues that apply to these groups of survivors and addresses the unique therapeutic challenges of doing psychotherapy with individuals and families in extreme crisis.