What would we do with a trauma so vague and vast that we have no name for it? I think there is such a trauma, and the British Psychoanalyst D. W. Winnicott identified it over half a century ago. Winnicott (1989) wrote specifically about trauma, but I’m not going to write about that. I’m going to write about the implications of his work in general.
The trauma identified by Winnicott doesn’t fit the definition of PTSD. Nor does it fit any of the categories by which experts think about developmental trauma, such as DESNOS (disorders of extreme stress not otherwise specified), C-PTSD (chronic or complex PTSD) or DTD (developmental trauma disorder).
All these categories, with the exception of PTSD, are traumas that primarily affect the developing child, though they may occur in any long term abusive situation, such as wife abuse. With children C-PTSD is generally the result of physical or sexual abuse or obvious neglect. A website explaining C-PTSD begins this way.
As a child, Olivia, who never knew the identity of her father, was consistently abused and neglected by her mother. Her mother’s emotional temperament was highly variable—shifting from dark moods during which she was verbally and physically abusive to her daughter, and manic periods during which she left Olivia to fend for herself for days at a time. (http://www.elementsbehavioralhealth.com/mental-health/what-are-the-symptoms-of-complex-ptsd/)
There are differences between C-PTSD and DESNOS, but they are primarily terminological (see my post http://traumatheory.com/?p=178). DTD is identical to C-PTSD. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association (DSM-5) does not officially recognize C-PTSD, but its new subcategories of dissociative and pre-school subtypes of PTSD come close. The International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) will include C-PTSD.
