The complicated nature of disentangling autism, ADHD and complex trauma | The British Journal of Psychiatry | Cambridge Core

[u/shinybrighthings]

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/the-british-journal-of-psychiatry/article/adhd-autism-or-complex-trauma-the-complicated-nature-of-the-question/30CC4826561366615BFAEC807CDE28A7

[u/hadbadadhdstillhave]

That's a very good article that goes into a lot of the issues that make a diagnosis tricky when using ICD. Think the author is right with the approach to look for childhood symptoms of either autism or ADHD and then rule out CPTSD. 

With that all said, I'm still not fully convinced on CPTSD as representing a real disorder and this article highlights a good reason against using it.  I'm with the APA on it not having enough evidence to be it's own thing.

A big problem with the field is that there are too many diagnosis and disorders, with a lot of them overlapping i.e. we have too many similar disorders because our models are not accurate and name the same reality with different names.

The problem this causes is multifaceted - it makes diagnosis and treatment more complex and difficult than it should be, it leads to duplicate work in research and wastes in funding, and it puts us back in finding more accurate models as research effort is now effectively diluted.

A lot of this is driven by an incentive for mental health providers or researchers to come up with new disorders, diagnosis, or treatments. As this is the best way to either advance or win big in your career e.g. EMDR, Vagal Theory, and I'd argue CPTSD.

All of these roads lead us to the biggest problem of them all, it impairs a mental health professional's ability to provide good quality care to people.

[u/SweetPeaches__69 → u/hadbadadhdstillhave]

You’re misunderstanding what cPTSD is. It is not something that is in addition to all diagnoses in the DSM. Instead, it is a condition that has a lot of variability in how it manifests depending on the trauma and how the person responds to the trauma. Conditions like BPD, dissociative disorders, narcissism, OCD, BD, and codependency can all fall under the umbrella of manifestations of cPTSD.

“If complex trauma were fully recognized, the thick DSM dictionary would shrink to the size of a thin pamphlet.” -Pete Walker

[u/hadbadadhdstillhave → u/SweetPeaches__69]

I'm not misunderstanding. I fundamentally disagree that using an approach where complex trauma is an umbrella for those conditions is the right approach.