Recent Events Highlight Importance of Recognizing Traumatic Stress Reactions in Children

Dec. 18, 2012 - PRLog -- New Rochelle, NY—Hurricane Sandy and the school shooting in Newtown, CT are recent examples of traumatic events that can evoke classic signs of stress reactions and the debilitating effects of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in children and teens. How best to help these children and counsel caregivers and educators, and new, effective, short-term treatment approaches for children at risk, are described in a timely editorial in Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology (http://www.liebertpub.com/cap), a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers (http://www.liebertpub.com). The editorial is available free on the Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology (http://www.liebertpub.com/cap) website.

Jamie Howard, PhD, a clinical psychologist and trauma expert at the Child Mind Institute (New York, NY) presents the classic signs of traumatic stress and explains how best to encourage resilience in children in the article, "Mitigating Traumatic Stress Reactions in Young People(http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/full/10.1089/cap.2012.2265)." The criteria for diagnosing stress need to be simpler in children than in adults, and new diagnostic criteria in development will require that an at-risk child display only one symptom.

“Unfortunately, Dr. Howard’s editorial is very timely,” says Harold S. Koplewicz, MD, Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology, and President, Child Mind Institute, New York, NY.
"We should be giving acute stress care to more kids," says Dr. Howard. "The idea here is not to pathologize typical reactions to stress but that we are missing some children who can benefit from new, time-limited interventions that have demonstrated efficacy."

About the Journal
Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology (http://www.liebertpub.com/cap) is an authoritative peer-reviewed journal published bimonthly in print and online. The journal is dedicated to child and adolescent psychiatry and behavioral pediatrics, covering clinical and biological aspects of child and adolescent psychopharmacology and developmental neurobiology. Complete tables of content and a sample issue may be viewed online on the Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology (http://www.liebertpub.com/cap) website.

About the Publisher
Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers (http://www.liebertpub.com) is a privately held, fully integrated media company known for establishing authoritative peer-reviewed journals in many promising areas of science and biomedical research, including Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking and Games for Health Journal. Its biotechnology trade magazine, Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News (GEN), was the first in its field and is today the industry’s most widely read publication worldwide. A complete list of the firm’s 70 journals, books, and newsmagazines is available on the Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers (http://www.liebertpub.com) website.