ABSTRACT
Long-term outcome of psychological trauma in childhood is inevitably difficult to trace or to identify. Many complexly interacting factors shape the lives of children, and the conceptual and methodological problems in studying any single factor or set of factors are formidable. Moreover, we have in recent years become increasingly aware of the enduring effects of psychic trauma, and that these effects may not be visible immediately or in subsequent specific behaviors or symptoms, but may forever shatter the individual's guiding conception of the world as relatively safe and reliable (Horowitz, 1976; Terr, 1983).
