Progress in PTSD

To the Editor: Drs. Stein and Rothbaum contributed an informative overview, published in the June 2018 issue of the Journal, of the history of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), with lessons learned, forgotten, and rediscovered (1). The current era reflects substantial progress in phenomenology and therapeutics. Admittedly, many patients with PTSD continue to experience distress and disability despite treatment, but that is a common challenge in our field of psychiatry. However, what is missing in this scholarly review are traumatized children and adolescents, an oversight that parallels the absence of a reference to this substantial clinical population when PTSD was first named as a disorder in DSM-III in 1980 (2). The study of childhood PTSD has a notable record of accomplishment that complements our understanding of PTSD in adults, many of whom had first experienced traumatic adversity as children (3). Stein and Rothbaum begin their article with the statement, “Traumatic stressors have always been a part of the human experience” (1, p. 508). Let’s not forget that human experience starts at birth.