RETROSPECTIVE ASSESSMENT OF TRAUMATIC EXPERIENCES (RATE)

Many patients with severe psychiatric disorders have suffered serious abuse and other traumata in their early lives. Documentation of the scope and nature of such associations, however, remains problematic and controversial. Our standardized rating instrument [the RATE] and methodology can serve as an effective and reliable way of assessing the type and degree of traumatic events in the early lives of test subjects; and secondarily, RATE confirms reports of high levels of such events in the histories of borderline patients.