Developmental Trauma: A Game Changer

There are many parallels between what is happening now in the mental health profession and game-changing events that took place in 1980. During the 20 years after PTSD was added as a diagnostic category to the DSM-III, it caused radical, game-changing ripples through all parts of the mental healthcare system–university training programs, clinical practice, research, funding, professional publications, and textbook publishing.

Developmental Trauma has now become the new game changer. During the five years prior to the publication of the DSM-5, thousands of mental health practitioners submitted data demonstrating the need to include Developmental Trauma Disorder (DTD) as a new diagnostic category. This course gives an overview of how political and financial forces inside the American Psychiatric Association (APA) acted to exclude DTD as a new DSM diagnostic category. Developmental trauma, like PTSD, has become an active force inside the mental health profession. It also threatens to ripple throughout the system as another game-changer.