Journal of Traumatic Stress, Vol. 5, No. 3, 1992
Complex PTSD: A Syndrome in Survivors of
Prolonged and Repeated Trauma
Judith Lewis Herman I
This paper reviews the evidence for the existence of a complex form of
post-traumatic disorder in survivors" of prolonged, repeated trauma. This
syndrome is currently under consideration for inclusion in DSM-IV under the
name of DESNOS (Disorders of Extreme Stress" Not Otherwise Specified). The
current diagnostic formulation of PTSD derives" primarily from observations of
survivors" of relatively circumscribed traumatic events'. This" formulation fails to
capture the protean sequelae of prolonged, repeated trauma. In contrast to a
single traumatic event, prolonged, repeated trauma can occur only where the
victim is in a state of captivity, under the control of the perpetrator. The
psychological impact of subordination to coercive control has many common
features, whether it occurs within the public sphere of politics or within the
private sphere of sexual and domestic relations.
KEY WORDS: complex PTSD.
INTRODUCTION
The current diagnostic formulation of PTSD derives primarily from
observations of survivors of relatively circumscribed traumatic events: combat,
disaster, and rape. It has been suggested that this formulation fails to
capture the protean sequelae of prolonged, repeated trauma. In contrast
to the circumscribed traumatic event, prolonged, repeated trauma can occur
only where the victim is in a state of captivity, unable to flee, and
under the control of the perpetrator. Examples of such conditions include
prisons, concentration camps, and slave labor camps. Such conditions also
161 Roseland St., Somerville, Massachusetts 02143.
377
0894-9867/92/0700~)377S06.50/0 © 1992 Plenum Publishing Corporation
378 Herman
exist in some religious cults, in brothels and other institutions of organized
sexual exploitation, and in some families.
Captivity, which brings the victim into prolonged contact with the perpetrator,
creates a special type of relationship, one of coercive control. This
is equally true whether the victim is rendered captive primarily by physical
force (as in the case of prisoners and hostages), or by a combination of
physical, economic, social, and psychological means (as in the case of religious
cult members, battered women, and abused children). The psychological
impact of subordination to coercive control may have many common
features, whether that subordination occurs within the public sphere of politics
or within the supposedly private (but equally political) sphere of sexual
and domestic relations.
This paper reviews the evidence for the existence of a complex form
of post-traumatic disorder in survivors of prolonged, repeated trauma. A
preliminary formulation of this complex post-traumatic syndrome is currently
under consideration for inclusion in DSM-IV under the name of
DESNOS (Disorders of Extreme Stress). In the course of a larger work in
progress, I have recently scanned literature of the past 50 years on survivors
of prolonged domestic, sexual, or political victimization (Herman, 1992).
This literature includes first-person accounts of survivors themselves, descriptive
clinical literature, and, where available, more rigorously designed
clinical studies. In the literature review, particular attention was directed
toward observations that did not fit readily into the existing criteria for
PTSD. Though the sources include works by authors of many nationalities,
only works originally written in English or available in English translation
were reviewed.
The concept of a spectrum of post-traumatic disorders has been suggested
independently by many major contributors to the field. Kolb, in a
letter to the editor of the American Journal of Psychiatry (1989), writes of
the "heterogeneity" of PTSD. He observes that "PTSD is to psychiatry as
syphilis was to medicine. At one time or another PTSD may appear to mimic
every personality disorder," and notes further that "It is those threatened
over long periods of time who suffer the long-standing severe personality
disorganization." Niederland, on the basis of his work with survivors of the
Nazi Holocaust, observes that "the concept of traumatic neurosis does not
appear sufficient to cover the multitude and severity of clinical manifestations"
of the survivor syndrome (in Krystal, 1968, p. 314). Tanay, working
with the same population, notes that "the psychopathology may be hidden
in characterological changes that are manifest only in disturbed object relationships
and attitudes towards work, the world, man and God" (Krystal,
1968, p. 221). Similarly, Kroll and his colleagues (1989), on the basis of their
work with Southeast Asian refugees, suggest the need for an "expanded conComplex
PTSD 379
cept of PTSD that takes into account the observations [of the effects of]
severe, prolonged, and/or massive psychological and physical traumata."
Horowitz (1986) suggests the concept of a "post-traumatic character disorder,"
and Brown and Fromm (1986) speak of "complicated PTSD."
Clinicians working with survivors of childhood abuse also invoke the
need for an expanded diagnostic concept. Gelinas (1983) describes the "disguised
presentation" of the survivor of childhood sexual abuse as a patient
with chronic depression complicated by dissociative symptoms, substance
abuse, impulsivity, self-mutilation, and suicidality. She formulates the underlying
psychopathology as a complicated traumatic neurosis. Goodwin
(1988) conceptualizes the sequelae of prolonged childhood abuse as a severe
post-traumatic syndrome which includes fugue and other dissociative
states, ego fragmentation, affective and anxiety disorders, reenactment and
revictimization, somatization and suicidality.
Clinical observations identify three broad areas of disturbance which
transcend simple PTSD. The first is symptomatic: the symptom picture in
survivors of prolonged trauma often appears to be more complex, diffuse,
and tenacious than in simple PTSD. The second is characterological: survivors
of prolonged abuse develop characteristic personality changes, including
deformations of relatedness and identity. The third area involves
the survivor's vulnerability to repeated harm, both self-inflicted and at the
hands of others.
Symptomatic Sequelae of Prolonged Victimization
Multiplicity of Symptoms
The pathological environment of prolonged abuse fosters the development
of a prodigious array of psychiatric symptoms. A history of abuse,
particularly in childhood, appears to be one of the major factors predisposing
a person to become a psychiatric patient. While only a minority of
survivors of chronic childhood abuse become psychiatric patients, a large
proportion (40-70%) of adult psychiatric patients are survivors of abuse
(Briere and Runtz, 1987; Briere and Zaidi, 1989, Bryer et al., 1987, Carmen
et al., 1984; Jacobson and Richardson, 1987).
Survivors who become patients present with a great number and variety
of complaints. Their general levels of distress are higher than those
of patients who do not have abuse histories. Detailed inventories of their
symptoms reveal significant pathology in multiple domains: somatic, cognitive,
affective, behavioral, and relational. Bryer and his colleagues (1987),
studying psychiatric inpatients, report that women with histories of physical
380 Herman
or sexual abuse have significantly higher scores than other patients on
standardized measures of somatization, depression, general and phobic
anxiety, interpersonal sensitivity, paranoia, and "psychoticism" (dissociative
symptoms were not measured specifically). Briere (1988), studying outpatients
at a crisis intervention service, reports that survivors of childhood
abuse display significantly more insomnia, sexual dysfunction, dissociation,
anger, suicidality, self-mutilation, drug addiction, and alcoholism than other
patients. Perhaps the most impressive finding of studies employing a "symptom
check-list" approach is the sheer length of the list of symptoms found
to be significantly related to a history of childhood abuse (Browne and
Finkelhor, 1986). From this wide array of symptoms, I have selected three
categories that do not readily fall within the classic diagnostic criteria for
PTSD: these are the somatic, dissociative, and affective sequelae of prolonged
trauma.
Somatization
Repetitive trauma appears to amplify and generalize the physiologic
symptoms of PTSD. Chronically traumatized people are hypervigilant, anxious
and agitated, without any recognizable baseline state of calm or comfort
(Hilberman, 1980). Over time, they begin to complain, not only of
insomnia, startle reactions and agitation, but also of numerous other somatic
symptoms. Tension headaches, gastrointestinal disturbances, and abdominal,
back, or pelvic pain are extremely common. Survivors also
frequently complain of tremors, choking sensations, or nausea. In clinical
studies of survivors of the Nazi Holocaust, psychosomatic reactions were
found to be practically universal (Hoppe, 1968; Krystal and Niederland,
1968; De Loos, 1990). Similar observations are now reported in refugees
from the concentration camps of Southeast Asia (Kroll et al., 1989; Kinzie
et al., 1990). Some survivors may conceptualize the damage of their prolonged
captivity primarily in somatic terms. Nonspecific somatic symptoms
appear to be extremely durable and may in fact increase over time (van
der Ploerd, 1989).
The clinical literature also suggests an association between somatization
disorders and childhood trauma. Briquet's initial descriptions of the
disorder which now bears his name are filled with anecdotal references to
domestic violence and child abuse. In a study of 87 children under twelve
with hysteria, Briquet noted that one-third had been "habitually mistreated
or held constantly in fear or had been directed harshly by their parents."
In another ten percent, he attributed the children's symptoms to traumatic
experiences other than parental abuse (Mai and Merskey, 1980). A recent
Complex PTSD 381
controlled study of 60 women with somatization disorder (Morrison, 1989)
found that 55% had been sexually molested in childhood, usually by relatives.
The study focused only on early sexual experiences; patients were
not asked about physical abuse or about the more general climate of violence
in their families. Systematic investigation of the childhood histories
of patients with somatization disorder has yet to be undertaken.
Dissociation
People in captivity become adept practitioners of the arts of altered
consciousness. Through the practice of dissociation, voluntary thought suppression,
minimization, and sometimes outright denial, they learn to alter
an unbearable reality. Prisoners frequently instruct one another in the induction
of trance states. These methods are consciously applied to withstand
hunger, cold, and pain (Partnoy, 1986; Sharansky, 1988). During prolonged
confinement and isolation, some prisoners are able to develop trance capabilities
ordinarily seen only in extremely hypnotizable people, including the
ability to form positive and negative hallucinations, and to dissociate parts
of the personality. [See first-person accounts by Elaine Mohamed in Russell
(1989) and by Mauricio Rosencof in Weschler (1989).] Disturbances in time
sense, memory, and concentration are almost universally reported (Allodi,
1985; Tennant et al., 1986; Kinzie et al., 1984). Alterations in time sense
begin with the obliteration of the future but eventually progress to the obliteration
of the past (Levi, 1958). The rupture in continuity between present
and past frequently persists even after the prisoner is released. The prisoner
may give the appearance of returning to ordinary time, while psychologically
remaining bound in the timelessness of the prison (Jaffe, 1968).
In survivors of prolonged childhood abuse, these dissociative capacities
are developed to the extreme. Shengold (1989) describes the "mind-fragmenting
operations" elaborated by abused children in order to preserve "the
delusion of good parents." He notes the "establishment of isolated divisions
of the mind in which contradictory images of the self and of the parents
are never permitted to coalesce." The virtuosic feats of dissociation seen,
for example, in multiple personality disorder, are almost always associated
with a childhood history of massive and prolonged abuse (Putnam et al.,
1986; Putnam, 1989; Ross et al., 1990). A similar association between severity
of childhood abuse and extent of dissociative symptomatology has been
documented in subjects with borderline personality disorder (Herman et al.,
1989), and in a nonclinical, college-student population (Sanders et al., 1989).
382 Herman
Affective Changes
There are people with very strong and secure belief systems, who can
endure the ordeals of prolonged abuse and emerge with their faith intact.
But these are the extraordinary few. The majority experience the bitterness
of being forsaken by man and God (Wiesel, 1960). These staggering psychological
losses most commonly result in a tenacious state of depression.
Protracted depression is reported as the most common finding in virtually
all clinical studies of chronically traumatized people (Goldstein et al., 1987)
Herman, 1981; Hilberman, 1980; Kinzie et al., 1984; Krystal, 1968; Walker,
1979). Every aspect of the experience of prolonged trauma combines to
aggravate depressive symptoms. The chronic hyperarousal and intrusive
symptoms of PTSD fuse with the vegetative symptoms of depression, producing
what Niederland calls the "survivor triad" of insomnia, nightmares,
and psychosomatic complaints (in Krystal, 1968, p. 313). The dissociative
symptoms of PTSD merge with the concentration difficulties of depression.
The paralysis of initiative of chronic trauma combines with the apathy and
helplessness of depression. The disruptions in attachments of chronic
trauma reinforce the isolation and withdrawal of depression. The debased
self image of chronic trauma fuels the guilty ruminations of depression.
And the loss of faith suffered in chronic trauma merges with the hopelessness
of depression.
The humiliated rage of the imprisoned person also adds to the depressive
burden (Hilberman, 1980). During captivity, the prisoner can not
express anger at the perpetrator; to do so would jepordize survival. Even
after release, the survivor may continue to fear retribution for any expression
of anger against the captor. Moreover, the survivor carries a burden
of unexpressed anger against all those who remained indifferent and failed
to help. Efforts to control this rage may further exacerbate the survivor's
social withdrawal and paralysis of initiative. Occasional outbursts of rage
against others may further alienate the survivor and prevent the restoration
of relationships. And internalization of rage may result in a malignant selfhatred
and chronic sucidality. Epidemiologic studies of returned POWs
consistently document increased mortality as the result of homicide, suicide,
and suspicious accidents (Segal et al., 1976). Studies of battered women
similarly report a tenacious suicidality. In one clinical series of 100 battered
women, 42% had attempted suicide (Gayford, 1975). While major depression
is frequently diagnosed in survivors of prolonged abuse, the connection
with the trauma is frequently lost. Patients are incompletely treated when
the traumatic origins of the intractable depression are not recognized (Kinzie
et al., 1990).
Complex PTSD 383
Characterological Sequelae of Prolonged Victimization
Pathological Changes in Relationship
In situations of captivity, the perpetrator becomes the most powerful
person in the life of the victim, and the psychology of victim is shaped over
time by the actions and beliefs of the perpetrator. The methods which enable
one human being to control another are remarkably consistent. These methods
were first systematically detailed in reports of so-called "brainwashing"
in American prisoners of war (Biderman, 1957; Farber et aL, 1957). Subsequently,
Amnesty International (1973) published a systematic review of
methods of coercion, drawing upon the testimony of political prisoners from
widely differing cultures. The accounts of coercive methods given by battered
women (Dobash and Dobash, 1979; NiCarthy, 1982, Walker, 1979), abused
children (Rhodes, 1990), and coerced prostitutes (Lovelace and McGrady,
1980) bear an uncanny resemblance to those hostages, political prisoners,
and survivors of concentration camps. While perpetrators of organized political
or sexual exploitation may instruct each other in coercive methods,
perpetrators of domestic abuse appear to reinvent them.
The methods of establishing control over another person are based
upon the systematic, repetitive infliction of psychological trauma. These
methods are designed to instill terror and helplessness, to destroy the victim's
sense of self in relation to others, and to foster a pathologic attachment
to the perpetrator. Although violence is a universal method of
instilling terror, the threat of death or serious harm, either to the victim
or to others close to her, is much more frequent than the actual resort to
violence. Fear is also increased by unpredictable outbursts of violence, and
by inconsistent enforcement of numerous trivial demands and petty rules.
In addition to inducing terror, the perpetrator seeks to destroy the
victim's sense of autonomy. This is achieved by control of the victim's body
and bodily functions. Deprivation of food, sleep, shelter, exercise, personal
hygiene, or privacy are common practices. Once the perpetrator has established
this degree of control, he becomes a potential source of solace as
well as humiliation. The capricious granting of small indulgences may undermine
the psychological resistance of the victim far more effectively than
unremitting deprivation and fear.
As long as the victim maintains strong relationships with others, the
perpetrator's power is limited; invariably, therefore, he seeks to isolate his
victim. The perpetrator will not only attempt to prohibit communication
and material support, but will also try to destroy the victim's emotional
ties to others. The final step in the "breaking" of the victim is not corn384
Herman
pleted until she has been forced to betray her most basic attachments, by
witnessing or participating in crimes against others.
As the victim is isolated, she becomes increasingly dependent upon
the perpetrator, not only for survival and basic bodily needs, but also for
information and even for emotional sustenance. Prolonged confinement in
fear of death and in isolation reliably produces a bond of identification
between captor and victim. This is the "traumatic bonding" that occurs in
hostages, who come to view their captors as their saviors and to fear and
hate their rescuers. Symonds (1982) describes this process as an enforced
regression to "psychological infantilism" which "compels victims to cling to
the very person who is endangering their life." The same traumatic bonding
may occur between a battered woman and her abuser (Dutton and Painter,
1981; Graham et al., 1988), or between an abused child and abusive parent
(Herman, 1981; van der Kolk, 1987). Similar experiences are also reported
by people who have been inducted into totalitarian religious cults (Halperin,
1983; Lifton, 1987).
With increased dependency upon the perpetrator comes a constriction
in initiative and planning. Prisoners who have not been entirely "broken"
do not give up the capacity for active engagement with their environment.
On the contrary, they often approach the small daily tasks of survival with
extraordinary ingenuity and determination. But the field of initiative is increasingly
narrowed within confines dictated by the perpetrator. The prisoner
no longer thinks of how to escape, but rather of how to stay alive,
or how to make captivity more bearable. This narrowing in the range of
initiative becomes habitual with prolonged captivity, and must be unlearned
after the prisoner is liberated. [See, for example, the testimony of Hearst
(1982) and Rosencof in Weschler, 1989.]
Because of this constriction in the capacities for active engagement
with the world, chronically traumatized people are often described as passive
or helpless. Some theorists have in fact applied the concept of "learned
helplessness" to the situation of battered women and other chronically traumatized
people (Walker, 1979; van der Kolk, 1987). Prolonged captivity
undermines or destroys the ordinary sense of a relatively safe sphere of
initiative, in which there is some tolerance for trial and error. To the
chronically traumatized person, any independent action is insubordination,
which carries the risk of dire punishment.
The sense that the perpetrator is still present, even after liberation,
signifies a major alteration in the survivor's relational world. The enforced
relationship, which of necessity monopolizes the victim's attention during
captivity, becomes part of her inner life and continues to engross her attention
after release. In political prisoners, this continued relationship may
take the form of a brooding preoccupation with the criminal careers of
Complex PTSD 385
specific perpetrators or with more abstract concerns about the unchecked
forces of evil in the world. Released prisoners continue to track their captors,
and to fear them (Krystal, 1968). In sexual, domestic, and religious
cult prisoners, this continued relationship may take a more ambivalent
form: the survivor may continue to fear her former captor, and to expect
that he will eventually hunt her down; she may also feel empty, confused,
and worthless without him (Walker, 1979).
Even after escape, it is not possible simply to reconstitute relationships
of the sort that existed prior to captivity. All relationships are now
viewed through the lens of extremity. Just as there is no range of moderate
engagement or risk for initiative, there is no range of moderate engagement
or risk for relationship. The survivor approaches all relationships as though
questions of life and death are at stake, oscillating between intense attachment
and terrified withdrawal.
In survivors of childhood abuse, these disturbances in relationship are
further amplified. Oscillations in attachment, with formation of intense, unstable
relationships, are frequently observed. These disturbances are described
most fully in patients with borderline personality disorder, the
majority of whom have extensive histories of childhood abuse. A recent empirical
study, confirming a vast literature of clinical observations, outlines in
detail the specific pattern of relational difficulties. Such patients find it very
hard to tolerate being alone, but are also exceedingly wary of others. Terrified
of abandonment on the one hand, and domination on the other, they oscillate
between extremes of abject submissiveness and furious rebellion (Melges and
Swartz, 1989). They tend to form "special" dependent relations with idealized
caretakers in which ordinary boundaries are not observed (Zanarini et al.,
1990). Very similar patterns are described in patients with MPD, including
the tendency to develop intense, highly "special" relationships ridden with
boundary violations, conflict, and potential for exploitation (Kluft, 1990).
Pathologic Changes in Identity
Subjection to a relationship of coercive control produces profound
alterations in the victim's identity. All the structures of the self--the image
of the body, the internalized images of others, and the values and ideals
that lend a sense of coherence and purpose--are invaded and systematically
broken down. In some totalitarian systems (political, religious, or sexual/domestic),
this process reaches the extent of taking away the victim's name
(Hearst and Moscow, 1982; Lovelace and McGrady). While the victim of
a single acute trauma may say she is "not herself" since the event, the
victim of chronic trauma may lose the sense that she has a self. Survivors
386 Herman
may describe themselves as reduced to a nonhuman life form (Lovelace
and McGrady, 1980; Timerman, 1981). Niederland (1968), in his clinical
observations of concentration camp survivors, noted that alterations of personal
identity were a constant feature of the survivor syndrome. While the
majority of his patients complained, "I am now a different person," the
most severely harmed stated simply, "I am not a person."
Survivors of childhood abuse develop even more complex deformations
of identity. A malignant sense of the self as contaminated, guilty, and
evil is widely observed. Fragmentation in the sense of self is also common,
reaching its most dramatic extreme in multiple personality disorder. Ferenczi
(1933) describes the "atomization" of the abused child's personality.
Rieker and Carmen (1986) describe the central pathology in victimized children
as a "disordered and fragmented identity deriving from accommodations
to the judgments of others." Disturbances in identity formation are
also characteristic of patients with borderline and multiple personality disorders,
the majority of whom have childhood histories of severe trauma.
In MPD, the fragmentation of the self into dissociated alters is, of course,
the central feature of the disorder (Bliss, 1986; Putnam, 1989). Patients
with BPD, though they lack the dissociative capacity to form fragmented
alters, have similar difficulties in the formation of an integrated identity.
An unstable sense of self is recognized as one of the major diagnostic criteria
for BPD, and the "splitting" of inner representations of self and others
is considered by some theorists to be the central underlying pathology of
the disorder (Kernberg, 1967).
Repetition of Harm Following Prolonged Victimization
Repetitive phenomena have been widely noted to be sequelae of
severe trauma. The topic has been recently reviewed in depth by van der
Kolk (1989). In simple PTSD, these repetitive phenomena may take the
form of intrusive memories, somato-sensory reliving experiences, or behavioral
re-enactments of the trauma (Brett and Ostroff, 1985; Terr, 1983).
After prolonged and repeated trauma, by contrast, survivors may be at risk
for repeated harm, either self-inflicted, or at the hands of others. These
repetitive phenomena do not bear a direct relation to the original trauma;
they are not simple reenactments or reliving experiences. Rather, they take
a disguised symptomatic or characterological form.
About 7-10% of psychiatric patients are thought to injure themselves
deliberately (Favazza and Conterio, 1988). Self-mutilization is a repetitive
behavior which appears to be quite distinct from attempted suicide. This
compulsive form of self-injury appears to be strongly associated with a hisComplex
PTSD 387
tory of prolonged repeated trauma. Self-mutilation, which is rarely seen
after a single acute trauma, is a common sequel of protracted childhood
abuse (Briere, 1988; van der Kolk et al., 1991). Self-injury and other paroxysmal
forms of attack on the body have been shown to develop most
commonly in those victims whose abuse began early in childhood (van der
Kolk, 1992).
The phenomenon of repeated victimization also appears to be specifically
associated with histories of prolonged childhood abuse. Widescale
epidemiologic studies provide strong evidence that survivors of childhood
abuse are at increased risk for repeated harm in adult life. For example,
the risk of rape, sexual harassment, and battering, though very high for all
women, is approximately doubled for survivors of childhood sexual abuse
(Russell, 1986). One clinical observer goes so far as to label this phenomenon
the "sitting duck syndrome" (Kluft, 1990).
In the most extreme cases, survivors of childhood abuse may find
themselves involved in abuse of others, either in the role of passive bystander
or, more rarely, as a perpetrator. Burgess and her collaborators
(1984), for example, report that children who had been exploited in a sex
ring for more than one year were likely to adopt the belief system of the
perpetrator and to become exploitative toward others. A history of prolonged
childhood abuse does appear to be a risk factor for becoming an
abuser, especially in men (Herman, 1988; Hotaling and Sugarman, 1986).
In women, a history of witnessing domestic violence (Hotaling and Sugarman,
1986), or sexual victimization (Goodwin et al., 1982) in childhood appears
to increase the risk of subsequent marriage to an abusive mate. It
should be noted, however, that contrary to the popular notion of a "generational
cycle of abuse," the great majority of survivors do not abuse others
(Kaufman and Zigler, 1987). For the sake of their children, survivors
frequently mobilize caring and protective capacities that they have never
been able to extend to themselves (Coons, 1985).
CONCLUSIONS
The review of the literature offers unsystematized but extensive empirical
support for the concept of a complex post-traumatic syndrome in survivors
of prolonged, repeated victimization. This previously undefined syndrome
may coexist with simple PTSD, but extends beyond it. The syndrome is characterized
by a pleomorphic symptom picture, enduring personality changes,
and high risk for repeated harm, either self-inflicted or at the hands of others.
Failure to recognize this syndrome as a predictable consequence of
prolonged, repeated trauma contributes to the misunderstanding of survi388
Herman
vors, a misunderstanding shared by the general society and the mental
health professions alike. Social judgment of chronically traumatized people
has tended to be harsh (Biderman and Zimmer, 1961; Wardell et al., 1983).
The propensity to fault the character of victims can be seen even in the
case of politically organized mass murder. Thus, for example, the aftermath
of the Nazi Holocaust witnessed a protracted intellectual debate regarding
the "passivity" of the Jews, and even their "complicity" in their fate (Dawidowicz,
1975). Observers who have never experienced prolonged terror, and
who have no understanding of coercive methods of control, often presume
that they would show greater psychological resistance than the victim in
similar circumstances. The survivor's difficulties are all too easily attributed
to underlying character problems, even when the trauma is known. When
the trauma is kept secret, as is frequently the case in sexual and domestic
violence, the survivor's symptoms and behavior may appear quite baffling,
not only to lay people but also to mental health professionals.
The clinical picture of a person who has been reduced to elemental
concerns of survival is still frequently mistaken for a portrait of the survivor's
underlying character. Concepts of personality developed in ordinary
circumstances are frequently applied to survivors, without an understanding
of the deformations of personality which occur under conditions of coercive
control. Thus, patients who suffer from the complex sequelae of chronic
trauma commonly risk being misdiagnosed as having personality disorders.
They may be described as "dependent," "masochistic," or "self-defeating."
Earlier concepts of masochism or repetition compulsion might be more usefully
supplanted by the concept of a complex traumatic syndrome.
Misapplication of the concept of personality disorder may be the most
stigmatizing diagnostic mistake, but it is by no means the only one. In general,
the diagnostic concepts of the existing psychiatric canon, including
simple PTSD, are not designed for survivors of prolonged, repeated trauma,
and do not fit them well. The evidence reviewed in this paper offer strong
support for expanding the concept of PTSD to include a spectrum of disorders
(Brett, 1992), ranging from the brief, self-limited stress reaction to
a single acute trauma, through simple PTSD, to the complex disorder of
extreme stress (DESNOS) that follows upon prolonged exposure to repeated
trauma.
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