Lack of Understanding of the Overall Impact of Trauma on Identity, Perceptions and Behavior

Childhood dissociation continues to be under-recognized and under-reported, regardless of the availability of many books on childhood dissociation (Silberg, 1996; Putnam, 1997; Shirar, 1996), peer review articles, child dissociative checklists (Armstrong, Putnam, Carlson, Libero, & Smith, 1997; Putnam, Helmers, & Trickett, 1993; Ruths, Silberg, Dell, & Jenkins, 2002; Stolbach, Silvern, Williams, & Reves, 1997), and published research on the impact of traumatic events on abused children and their memory system. Although there is discussion in the literature about the association of dissociation with chronic traumatization in childhood (e.g., Terr’s (1991) Type II trauma and Herman’s (1992) complex PTSD), sadly, many child therapists lack even a minimal understanding of the impact of trauma on a child’s identity and development. There are, no doubt, multiple reasons for this lack of recognition and understanding and in this paper I will discuss some of those reasons and describe some common errors made by child theraPlease note that this electronic prepublication galley may contain typographical errors and may be missing artwork, such as charts, photographs, etc. Pagination in this version will differ from the published version.