ABSTRACT
Aside from experiencing combat or living in a war zone, the vulnerability of homelessness may pose the greatest single situational risk for adolescent posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Living life in public places or not knowing where you will sleep on a given night is extremely stressful for adults (Goodman, Saxe, & Harvey, 1991), and it is even more so for adolescents whose vulnerability is increased by developmental and societal norms of adult protection and supervision (Whitbeck & Hoyt, 1999). The first diagnostic criterion for PTSD in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, third edition, revised (DSM-III-R; American Psychiatric Association, 1987) is that the individual has been involved in a traumatic event that is “outside of the range of usual human experience” (p. 236). In the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth edition, text revision (DSMIV-TR; American Psychiatric Association, 2000), the first two criteria are as follows (p. 467):
The person experienced, witnessed, or was confronted with an event or events that involved actual or threatened death or serious injury or a threat to the physical integrity of self or others.
The person’s response involved intense fear, helplessness, or terror.
