Posttraumatic child therapy (P-TCT) - Assessment and treatment factors in clinical work with inner-city children exposed to catastrophic community violence

This article discusses the adverse health effects of political terror and community violence on the minds and bodies of children, posttraumatic symptoms and responses to violence, a prescribed assessment process, and a model of intervention called ''posttraumatic child therapy'' (P-TCT). Posttraumatic assessment of children victimized by political or community violence is seen here as a critical dimension of clinical treatment-P-TCT. Discussed as a system of care and therapy, moreover; P-TCT incorporates cognitive, behavioral and psychodynamic procedures into ifs methods. Thus the proposed treatment approach here includes what the author calls behavioral traumatic stress management; techniques to alter the child's cognitive theories of self, trauma and world; and the careful timing of the use of transference work to help repair the rupture in the fabric of the child's attachment capabilities.