ABSTRACT
The presentations of children with complex trauma histories are many and varied. This chapter describes several different children and adolescents who have experienced disrupted attachment and trauma. Their histories, symptoms and responses to therapy differ. Their life situations also differ, presenting different challenges and opportunities in addressing their treatment and attachment needs. Dissociation is a disorder of secrecy, and helps children to hide trauma and its symptoms. Many therapists, child welfare workers and police do not have adequate training in recognising complex trauma or dissociative disorders. Two prominent historic children's mental health textbooks from the fifties and sixties do not address child maltreatment, and refer to neglect and physical abuse only in passing. The possibility of sexual abuse is mentioned once in passing. Maltreatment is not mentioned as an etiological factor of childhood disorders. To understand and respond to the prevalence of complex trauma, dissociation and attachment disorders have a similar impact on the system.
