An Open Letter to The American Psychiatric Association’s Trauma- and Stressor-Related Disorders Work Group.
Figure 1. Page 290 from Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: DSM-5, showing the criteria for “Unspecified Trauma- and Stressor-Related Disorder.” Included under fair use for academic analysis.
Dear APA Trauma- and Stressor-Related Disorders Work Group,
This communication is a heartfelt plea to add something—anything—to the next edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders so that countless individuals who have endured emotional neglect and abuse, and who continue to suffer chronically as a result, can finally be diagnosed accurately and appropriately. Please. This is important.
My childhood was marred by years of emotional neglect and abuse at the hands of both my primary caregivers. It’s not hyperbole to state that this mistreatment and relational injury completely derailed my life. I’ve spent three decades of my adulthood trying to repair and rebuild myself. I have had to wait, seek, fight, search, and advocate relentlessly to secure the clarity and treatment that have kept me whole, alive, and in relative good health. It can feel like you’re fighting an unwinnable battle when you hit up against bias, disinterest, resistance, and even medical or mental health gaslighting in a provider’s office. But here is one thing that will, without fail, get in your way: when the diagnosis you sincerely believe you require isn’t official or, according to some, even real. To foreshadow my coming argument, allow me to share the frustration journalist and childhood abuse survivor Stephanie Foo relates in her 2022 memoir, What My Bones Know:
Let’s say you get lucky and find a licensed clinical psychologist with an open slot. . . . You just need to receive an official diagnosis for your insurance. You are certain you have complex PTSD, but he can’t diagnose you with that because it’s not in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Your insurance only covers treatments for conditions listed in the DSM in order to assign a number of sessions to you. Most forms of insurance will pay for, say, only six months of therapy related to anxiety, 10 for depression, as if you should be better by then. Another consequence of C-PTSD, not belonging in the DSM: This psychologist hasn’t been trained in treating it. He says he doesn’t believe that it’s a real diagnosis. He’d like to provide you with some questionnaires to see if you have something he can actually handle—bipolar disorder, maybe, or manic depression. This does not inspire confidence, so you leave. (93)
Foo’s words echo so much of my own experience—roadblocks, false starts, and dead ends occur at every turn, but it should not be this way. Just as Foo describes in her memoir, so many of us desire the awareness, validation, trauma-informed treatment, and ideally recovery that first requires the illuminating, blame-externalizing, and shame-busting power of a proper diagnosis.
Bear with me as I expound upon the logos of this argument. In 2016, the International Journal of Child Abuse and Neglect provided the following definition: “Emotional maltreatment can be broadly defined as a repeated pattern of caregiver behavior or extreme incident(s) that convey to children that they are flawed, unloved, unwanted, endangered, or of value only in meeting another’s needs” (APSAC qtd. in Taillieu et al.). A year later, the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease published an abstract of a study that reviewed forty-four articles released between 2001 and 2011. It revealed that early life stress, which includes emotional neglect and abuse, undeniably “triggers, aggravates, maintains, and increases the recurrence of psychiatric disorders” in adolescents and adults (Carr et al.). In 2024, a meta-analysis of 122 studies of people with psychiatric disorders revealed that 43.1% experienced emotional neglect, 34.8% experienced physical neglect, and 46.6% endured what was termed broadly as “any neglect” (Carvalho-Silva et al.). And finally, from a slightly different angle, in a 2025 study involving 549 individuals receiving outpatient cognitive behavioral therapy, a staggering 57.6% of participants reported at least one form of childhood maltreatment (Teismann et al.). These numbers are shocking but also not surprising.
Exploring this research can feel convoluted. The statistics seem to slip and slide all over the place, coming from every direction at once. Such data is hard to compare. I suspect this is related to the fact that far less research has been done on childhood emotional neglect and abuse in general, and there is little to no standardization in assessment. The same International Journal of Child Abuse and Neglect article quoted above corroborates this: “Across the literature, prevalence estimates vary widely due to differences in sample characteristics, [and] how emotional maltreatment is defined, the specific type of emotional maltreatment assessed” (Taillieu et al.). Furthermore, it’s generally understood that much of what is considered neglect is subjective or, more confoundingly, due to implicit messaging and acts of omission rather than explicit, cruel, or careless words and behavior. This investigative quandary has left too many of us out in the cold and dark for too long. It’s time to take steps toward a remedy.
For all its usefulness, the well-known Adverse Childhood Experiences Questionnaire (ACEs) does little to quantify emotional neglect or other subtle relational stressors. In recent years, new assessment tools have been developed to measure emotional maltreatment. A quick AI-assisted search reveals at least three of these: the Rating of Emotional Abuse in Childhood (REACH) Questionnaire, the Multidimensional Neglectful Behavior Scale (MNBS), and the Child Neglect Assessment (C.N.A.) Technique.
It would be a decisive move if the APA were to assess these new resources and promote the one offering the most significant clinical benefit. If none of these tools meet the APA’s exacting standards, advocating for the development of a suitable ACEs-like assessment would be an extremely valuable next step. Such a tool could help clinicians identify at-risk individuals, facilitate further research, and provide substantial empirical data. It would not replace clinical diagnosis, but it would offer a consistent framework to illuminate the relational damage that has lingered in dimly lit diagnostic corners for far too long. With more standardization comes more research. With more research comes a better understanding. Better understanding leads to better treatment outcomes. This shift needs to start somewhere, and the APA can get us moving in the right direction with recommendations and guidance around this type of assessment.
Survivors of relational trauma require more than just a new assessment questionnaire, however. It’s been twenty years since the effort to add developmental trauma disorder (DTD) to the DSM began (DeAngelis). The criteria for a DTD diagnosis include emotional maltreatment and sustained relational trauma (Abrams). This might enable children and adolescents to receive a proper diagnosis, but this is only half the battle. There should also be a diagnosis for adults with a history of similar trauma so they may seek and secure the answers and healing they need as well. Without it, most of us are saddled with diagnoses that may or may not offer us the insight and treatment we deserve.
Licensed marriage and family psychotherapist Pete Walker writes that he has seen many clients “misdiagnosed with various anxiety and depressive disorders. Moreover, many are also unfairly and inaccurately labeled with bipolar, narcissistic, codependent, autistic spectrum, and borderline disorders” (9). Walker is careful to point out that while there is no ruling out comorbidities among various disorders, he warns that knowing only half the story can be challenging for an individual’s sense of self and their overall therapeutic process. He insists that many of the diagnoses people receive can convey stigma and shame and postulates that the symptoms of such “are typically treated as innate characterological defects rather than as learned maladaptations to stress—adaptations that survivors are forced to learn as traumatized children” (9).
This is in line with my history and personal experience; I’ve been diagnosed with—among a few other things and in relative chronological order—complex migraine, major depressive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, somatic symptom disorder, alcohol use disorder, fibromyalgia, adjustment disorder, specific learning disorders, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, autism spectrum disorder, and unspecified trauma- and stressor-related disorder. Let me be clear: I am autistic, I have ADHD, and I am, beyond a shadow of a doubt, dyslexic. I’ve had chronic pain since I was five years old, and as an adult, I definitely used alcohol as self-medication. I have been depressed and anxious, and I have endured acute difficulties enough to earn that adjustment disorder label. Through one lens or another, each of these diagnoses is accurate. I won’t deny it. Of all the diagnostic labels above, however, “depression” and “anxiety” feel the most slapdash. Who wouldn’t be depressed and anxious if they had endured all the mystery, frustration, pain, and dysregulation I have?
I didn’t compose this letter to discuss the misapplication of depression and anxiety diagnoses—that is a different persuasive argument altogether. I am, however, confounded by this diagnosis in particular—unspecified trauma- and stressor-related disorder. This cryptic, vague, dissatisfying label is why you are reading this specific letter. I am holding out hope for a more concrete and practical diagnosis. I need more information and assistance, please. I desire the relief and the healing acknowledgment that would come with recognition of my traumatic history, not erasure of it with the unhelpful modifier “unspecified.”
I also require behavioral health coverage and trauma-informed therapy to mitigate the pain and suffering that trauma has left me with. Working toward this end, I secured a neuropsychological evaluation in the winter of 2023. Superficially, this was so I could be assessed for specific learning disorders (dyslexia, dyscalculia). And while that was indeed my primary goal, I knew my assessor would be casting a wide net. Under the intense curiosity surrounding my learning disabilities, I was hoping for a more profound and emotional insight. I had come to believe that the suite of disorders that pertained to my mood and general affect in the world—those of major depressive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, somatic symptom disorder, and adjustment disorder—was grossly limited and inaccurate in its scope. I suspected these were just descriptors for symptoms of a larger, more foundational problem: complex post-traumatic stress.
Most of us coming of age in the 1990s and beyond are familiar with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). We know it was what combat veterans returned home with. We may even have a more expanded awareness that it can apply to survivors of sexual assault as well as people who have been in car accidents or any major life-threatening event. In the past few years, however, in large part due to conversations on social media but also due to writings in the realm of self-help and popular psychology, the narrative around trauma has shifted. Many, including myself, have been exposed to the concept of complex trauma and an associated condition named complex post-traumatic stress (C-PTSD).
The “complexity” of complex PTSD comes from the pervasiveness of the trauma, the often hazy, long timeline in which it occurred, and the lack of agency one might have to escape it. C-PTSD, as I came to understand it, weaves in attachment theory and a sensitivity to developmental and relational trauma. This resonated so thoroughly with me, and for many years, I was convinced I was seeking a C-PTSD diagnosis. I am not alone. Social media platforms and trauma support groups are filled to the brim with lost souls trying desperately to solve the mystery of their early trauma while wrestling with confusing, unhelpful, and dissatisfying diagnoses. All of us have come to shelter under the banner of C-PTSD.
It was only through researching this petition that I learned of the World Health Organization’s official recognition of C-PTSD in 2018 and that the condition is currently listed, along with all its diagnostic criteria, in the International Classification of Diseases, 11th Revision (ICD-11). The ICD-11 describes it as follows:
“Complex post-traumatic stress disorder may develop following exposure to an event or series of events of an extremely threatening or horrific nature, most commonly prolonged or repetitive events from which escape is difficult or impossible” (WHO).
They list everything from torture and sex trafficking to prolonged domestic violence and repeated childhood sexual or physical abuse.
What? Oh. This intense fear- and abuse-focused version of the condition was not what I meant when I said “C-PTSD.” Upon closer inspection, the version I identified with suddenly began to look suspiciously “pop culture.” I won’t lay all the blame on social media, though. The first book I read on C-PTSD, Pete Walker’s Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving, explicitly states that the condition can be caused by emotional maltreatment, relational abuse, and, in his words, even “emotional neglect alone” (10). I don’t wish to fault the authors, advocates, clinicians, and, yes, bloggers who were actively sharing information about this relational version of C-PTSD; their efforts to educate and support survivors are to be commended.
If I only had half the picture, it is worth noting that the zeitgeist has been moving faster than the establishment. A great deal has happened in trauma advocacy, research, and therapeutic practice since the DSM-5 was published in 2013. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, Text Revision was released in 2022, of course, but the only additions to the “Trauma- and Stressor-Related Disorders” chapter were the inclusion of prolonged grief disorder and a shift in diagnostic criteria for children with PTSD (APA, DSM-5-TR Fact Sheets). It’s time for the APA to catch up and align the DSM with the past twelve years of research, clinical practice, and survivor testimony. Further delays only leave people like me in a confusing and frustrating shadow cast by missing information. I only stumbled across my own ignorance because I was literally researching an academic paper.
In any event, acknowledging that I had no idea what was what, I started to dig deeper. I confirmed there are two versions of complex trauma: the official ICD-11 fear and trauma-exposure model and a more popular attachment and developmental trauma model supported by trauma-informed communities, social media, and many therapeutic circles. I now realize I was identifying with something twice removed from any standardization.
My confidence in this petition faltered further when I considered the frequently cited counterargument I intended to explore. Specifically, C-PTSD should not be included in the DSM because it does not appear to be a distinct enough condition to warrant its own entry. The argument suggests that there is too much gray area and that the symptoms are not different from PTSD and borderline personality disorder (BPD). But when comparing these three disorders, which version of C-PTSD were these arguments even considering? It was difficult to tell at first, but I ultimately came to understand that many of the articles I was reading and using to formulate my argument were referring to the ICD-11 version of C-PTSD. So then I had to ask myself, where does my version of C-PTSD fall in all of this? Is it even necessary to argue that something like it be added to the DSM? Are there other conditions in the DSM that address developmental and relational trauma? For adults as well as children? I had no idea! I got a copy of the DSM-5 from my local library to see what I could determine.
The DSM’s “Trauma- and Stressor-related Disorder” chapter begins with reactive attachment disorder and disinhibited social engagement disorder. These, reactive attachment disorder in particular, seem promising at first glance, but upon closer inspection, don’t do what I need them to. These are conditions that can only be diagnosed in children and only under adverse conditions like foster care or institutionalization. Furthermore, the DSM states that reactive attachment disorder is very uncommon, occurring in less than 10% of institutionalized children or those in foster care (266). Likewise, a disinhibited social engagement disorder diagnosis seems reserved for similarly difficult circumstances and impacts, according to the DSM, only 20% of children in foster care and institutional settings (268).
Next comes a much more familiar condition—post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). PTSD can be diagnosed in both children and adults. The primary measure in receiving a PTSD diagnosis is having been subjected to what is referred to as a Criterion A experience: “actual or threatened death, serious injury, or sexual violence” (271). This could be a distinct incident, like a car accident or sexual assault, or a series of traumatic events within a clear window of time, like those experienced by soldiers in a war zone (271)—no assistance here for those who are chronically distressed as a result of emotional maltreatment.
Next up are acute stress disorder and adjustment disorder. Acute stress disorder once again deals with life-threatening stressors (280). The diagnostic criteria of adjustment disorder are milder; the DSM references the end of a romantic relationship, work stress, or illness as possible triggers (287). However, this condition, like acute stress disorder, is limited in the scope of time during which it is present. Both conditions are expected to resolve within six months or less (284, 287).
The final diagnoses in this section of the DSM are other specified trauma- and stressor-related disorder and unspecified trauma- and stressor-related disorder. Both of these vague conditions almost seem helpful at first glance, but still fall short. Here, a clinician can choose to specify a reason that a person might be suffering due to a stressor that does not meet the diagnostic criteria for PTSD (289). Or they might even choose to leave the stressor unspecified (290), as they did in my case. Before my neuropsych, I naively imagined that I might earn myself a PTSD diagnosis. There was, in addition to all of the pervasive neglect and emotional abuse in my childhood, at least one big, aka Criterion A, stressor in my past. My assessor was kind enough to explain that because my persistent symptoms began before this one named traumatic event, a PTSD diagnosis was not applicable.
Instead, I was offered the diagnosis unspecified trauma- and stressor-related disorder—a condition that warrants one paragraph on page 290 of the fifth edition of the DSM (as shown in Figure 1). With the entry for PTSD taking a total of nine and a half pages of that edition, this one minuscule paragraph felt like—and forgive the idiomatic histrionics here—a real kick in the teeth. My mental health boiled down to 51 dissatisfying and indeterminate words in a book. While I can’t know my assessor’s mind, nor do I truly understand the diagnostic process, I feel sure that my “unspecified trauma” was the childhood emotional neglect and abuse I repeatedly referred to in my evaluation. Even well into my middle age, I was not out of the tangle of these therapeutic woods.
And let’s not forget that many still maintain that my C-PTSD symptoms can be explained by classic PTSD and other conditions outside of the trauma section of the DSM, specifically BPD. These diagnoses still fall short for people like me, however. Any person with my life history and experiences is excluded from a PTSD diagnosis. Beyond that, my post-traumatic stress symptoms are fundamentally different from those with PTSD. Likewise, my sense of self does not mirror what those with BPD experience. Not by a long shot. In August 2025, the American Psychological Association published “Diagnosing, Assessing, and Treating Complex Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD) and Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD)” by Stoian et al. This valuable resource outlines the key variations in symptoms and provides clinicians with clear diagnostic tools for assessment. This article presents one of the most concise descriptions of the variations between these three conditions that I have encountered. They state:
PTSD is a posttraumatic threat disorder with a preoccupation with avoiding harm, whereas C-PTSD is a posttraumatic betrayal [emphasis mine] disorder that encompasses a fear of vulnerability and interpersonal relationships while viewing oneself as damaged. (Ford, qtd. in Stoian et al. 2)
Regarding the comparison between C-PTSD and BPD, they go on to say:
Although both disorders are characterized by individuals exhibiting a negative self-concept, individuals with borderline personality disorder typically report an unstable sense of self, alternating between having a grandiose sense of self and quickly possessing a highly negative sense of self. (Giourou et al., qtd. in Stoian et al. 4)
As for those with C-PTSD, they state, “In contrast, individuals with complex PTSD consistently exhibit a low self-concept, marked by viewing themselves as defeated, worthless, and shameful” (Ford and Courtois; Giourou et al., qtd. in Stoian et al. 4). This hits so hard, it takes my breath away.
I have documented all of this to illustrate that the diagnoses currently available in the DSM apply primarily to extreme types of abuse and trauma. For anything less demonstrably terrible, the available diagnosis covers only short-term symptoms, not long-term experiences. There does not appear to be a chronic condition outlined in the DSM that can be diagnosed for people who have experienced trauma that is relational, prolonged, and inescapable, especially trauma created by attachment injury and/or subsequent emotional neglect and abuse.
Figure 2. Mind the Gap, created by the author using Google’s NotebookLM (7 Dec. 2025)
At present, we only have misapplied diagnostic labels that describe a portion of our symptoms and experiences. We do not have an accurate, complete, and integrated diagnosis. And we need one.
I have seen the sentiment repeated over and over that the APA/DSM wants to avoid citing etiology or the cause of mental disorders and is instead focused mainly on outlining the diagnostic criteria, but I would argue that the etiological ship has sailed. Every condition listed in the “Trauma- and Stressor-Related Disorders” chapter bucks this convention. Each condition currently listed is intrinsically linked to an external cause. Adding a condition caused by emotional maltreatment is consistent with what has already been established here. If the issue is simply standardizing and cataloging what emotional neglect and abuse look like, I heartily challenge you to do so. The world deserves this clarification, and we who endure deserve recognition and assistance.
Furthermore, it’s abundantly clear from how my experience compares to that of other survivors who grapple with this relational- and attachment-based complex trauma; our suffering settles into similarities and patterns. The diagnostic touchstones you require are repeatedly revealed in our symptoms and stories. We can tell you everything you need to know. If you don’t trust us, or if you need more, look to the ICD-11 and the symptoms of complex trauma as enumerated there, because what I and others experience is not new or novel; it’s already been established and codified:
Intrusive memories, flashbacks, deliberate avoidance, persistent perceptions of heightened threat, hypervigilance, enhanced or diminished startle reaction, heightened emotional reactivity to minor stressors, self-destructive behaviour, dissociative symptoms, emotional numbing, persistent beliefs about oneself as diminished, defeated or worthless, accompanied by deep and pervasive feelings of shame, guilt or failure, persistent difficulties in sustaining relationships and in feeling close to others, significant impairment in personal, family, social, educational, occupational functioning. (WHO)
If a person is able to function, the ICD-11 continues, “it is only through significant additional effort” (WHO). I could not have said it better myself.
The APA itself acknowledges that inclusion in the DSM can help to establish research on a particular mental disorder: “Only by having consistent and reliable diagnoses can researchers determine the risk factors and causes for specific disorders, and determine their incidence and prevalence rates” (APA, Insurance Implications of DSM-5). The benefit of being in the DSM doesn’t end with just research, of course. The standardized medical coding provided in each edition allows providers and clinicians to request reimbursement from insurance companies. This is functional and practical, with the potential to have an enormous impact on people’s therapeutic journeys.
As it stands, my behavioral health insurance grants me coverage for traditional talk therapy, most commonly, cognitive behavioral therapy. Over the years, I thankfully have been able to afford the psychiatric medicine I’ve been prescribed for my mood and anxiety, but this fails to account for the fact that talk therapy and antidepressants are not evidence-based best practices for people reconciling relational trauma. Frankly, these strategies have failed to alleviate my symptoms. If I wish to pursue different modalities of trauma-informed care, like eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR), for example, I typically need to pay out of pocket. As a recipient of Medical Assistance, this is limiting. I can rarely, if ever, afford even the lowest sliding scale price for a fully trained clinician. I gratefully settle, over and over, for trainees and interns. I am relieved I can afford even this and am gratified I can aid an intern in their training, but people who are struggling and trying to heal deserve more.
While there are no guarantees in the ever-shifting, for-profit landscape of the American health system, I will nonetheless posit that even the chance of coverage for trauma-informed treatment is something worth advocating for. In an ideal world, insurance companies would authorize such therapies for as long as they are genuinely efficacious for each patient. To hold out even a hope of that, we need the diagnostic criteria, clinical features, and coding provided by the APA and the DSM.
If pressed to offer a solution, I would assert that the APA should adopt and then expand the ICD-11 concept of C-PTSD. I believe this would be the most straightforward path forward. Once augmented to include emotional maltreatment and other forms of relational trauma, it could serve as a profoundly meaningful and functional diagnosis for both children and adults. I respectfully and with great humility implore the APA to get out of its own way and work diligently to assist us. I realize it is a complicated request, but I am asking because I have the utmost faith that the eventual inclusion of something—anything—would make a world of difference for so many.
I have mentioned more than once the all-important validation that would come with this, and yet I have failed to articulate the benefit I genuinely believe would follow from that acknowledgment. To do so, I will offer the brilliant words of psychiatrist and neuroscientist Vera Hart:
From a neuropsychological view, validation functions as regulation. . . . Culturally, the healing of doubt demands something larger than individual repair. It asks that communities and institutions learn to bear witness without defensiveness. When society stops doubting the survivor’s voice, the individual nervous system can finally rest within a shared moral reality. Recognition at the collective level releases what biology alone cannot resolve. . . . Psychologically, this stage represents the return of self-trust. The internal witness, once silenced by fear or doubt, becomes reliable again. The survivor no longer seeks validation from the outside world to confirm what was lived inside. The psyche reorganizes itself around a new principle: what is known inwardly is real. (Hart)
So you see, the name of the condition matters less than the astonishingly helpful fact that our suffering may simply be recognized to exist. You have the power to offer us this recognition. Please do.
Thank you.
Works Cited
Abrams, Zara. “Improved Treatment for Developmental Trauma.” Monitor on Psychology, vol. 52, no. 5, American Psychological Association, July/Aug. 2021, https://www.apa.org/monitor/2021/07/ce-corner-developmental-trauma.
American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: DSM-5. 5th ed., American Psychiatric Publishing, 2013.
American Psychiatric Association. DSM-5-TR Fact Sheets. Psychiatry.org, https://www.psychiatry.org/psychiatrists/practice/dsm/educational-resources/dsm-5-tr-fact-sheets. Accessed 6 Dec. 2025.
American Psychiatric Association. “Insurance Implications of DSM-5.” American Psychiatric Association, 2013, https://www.psychiatry.org/File%20Library/Psychiatrists/Practice/DSM/APA_DSM_Insurance-Implications-of-DSM-5.pdf.
Carr, Clara Passmann, et al. “The Role of Early Life Stress in Adult Psychiatric Disorders: A Systematic Review According to Childhood Trauma Subtypes.” The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, vol. 201, no. 12, 2013, pp. 1007–20. https://doi.org/10.1097/NMD.0000000000000049.
Carvalho-Silva, Rosana, et al. “Childhood Neglect, the Neglected Trauma: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Its Prevalence in Psychiatric Disorders.” Psychiatry Research, vol. 335, 2024, 115881. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2024.115881.
DeAngelis, Tori. “A New Diagnosis for Childhood Trauma?” Monitor on Psychology, Mar. 2007, https://www.apa.org/monitor/mar07/diagnosis.
Foo, Stephanie. What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma. Allen & Unwin /Atlantic Books, 2022.
Hart, Vera. “The Burden of Proof: What Survivors Carry, and What Finally Sets Us Free.” Substack, 2025, https://substack.com/inbox/post/177676731. Accessed 02 Dec. 2025.
Parker, Mars. Mind the Gap. Created with Google’s NotebookLM, 7 Dec. 2025. PNG file.
Stoian, Simona, et al. “Diagnosing, Assessing, and Treating Complex Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD) and Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD).” Practice Innovations, Aug. 2025. https://doi.org/10.1037/pri0000294.
Taillieu, Tamara L., et al. “Childhood Emotional Maltreatment and Mental Disorders: Results from a Nationally Representative Adult Sample from the United States.” Child Abuse & Neglect, vol. 59, 2016, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2016.07.005.
Teismann, Tobias, et al. “Childhood Abuse and Neglect in Routine Care Psychotherapy Patients.” Frontiers in Psychiatry, vol. 16, 2025, article 1566560, https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2025.1566560.
Walker, Pete. Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving. Azure Coyote, 2014.
World Health Organization. International Classification of Diseases, 11th Revision (ICD-11). WHO, https://icd.who.int. Accessed 26 Nov. 2025.
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