We all know that the baby's world is a 10-20 square foot field, which grows steadily over the years. The small world plays a leading role in shaping the child's mind at a rate inversely proportional to its size. In fact, not only stressful pieces of life but all kinds of experience takes part in the psychosocial development of the child, good or bad. Herewith, the conditions that cause chronic stress such as neglect, abuse, poverty, domestic or societal violence, war, and dislocation leave unfavorable traces that are difficult to change in the human mind. Today, while we, the mental health workers, are more focused on the apparent wounds that such adverse experiences have left in our souls, the unseen wounds continue to shape the child, society, and us all.
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Although it was not believed that the diagnosis of PTSD is relevant for children and adolescents, studies by Leonore Terr, David Kinzie, William Sack, William Yule, Van Der Kolk and many others who researched whether mental wellbeing of children is adversely affected by traumatic events proved otherwise. Thanks to the authors, today it is, undisputedly accepted that PTSD could develop in children following life-threatening traumatic incidents(Dyregrov,2006).
The traumatic experience is defined as exposing to an incident that threat person's bodily integrity or his life (Karakaya,2007) Many people are exposed to traumatic incidents such as injuries, violence, natural disasters, fire, traffic accidents or sexual and physical assault during childhood. Besides, witnessing the injuring or killing of someone, and learning death or serious injuring of a close relative or parents after a traumatic event could also be traumatic(Ozgen,1999;DSM 5,2013). Besides, some medical interventions, such as various medical procedures and surgery, are similarly traumatic for children (Ari AB et al,2017).
Psychiatric disorders arise as a result of the complex interaction between social, psychological and biological factors (Cuhadaroglu,2008). An accumulation of ad-verse experiences and risk factors cause greater harm to mental health(Sack,1999). Both the type of event and duration of exposure may increase risk by intensifying personal threat (Hodes,2008). It has been showed that the number of exposures to traumatic incidents is associated with increased PTSD probability (Laufer,2009; Thabet,2000).