Psychological Trauma and the Developing Brain

Psychological Trauma and the Developing Brain: Neurologically Based Interventions for troubled Children.
Phyllis T. Stien & Joshua Kendall.
The Haworth Press. 2004.
ISBN: 0789017873.

Psychological Trauma and the Developing Brain presents a psychobiological approach to child development, emphasising how trauma, maltreatment, and relationships shape brain and behaviour, and it discusses interventions, early treatment, and policy responses. The book argues that positive early experience supports healthy brain development, while abuse, neglect, and traumatic stress can impair emotional and cognitive functioning. It also distinguishes between simple and complex PTSD and links childhood maltreatment to specific brain and behavioral impairments.

​Phyllis T. Stien is a health professional and researcher with a background in nursing and psychophysiology. She earned a BS in nursing from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and graduate training in psychophysiology and exercise physiology at the University of Virginia. She is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Washington University School of Medicine, where she worked in cardiology and heart rate variability research.


Joshua C. Kendall is a Boston-based freelance journalist and author whose work has appeared in major publications including The Boston Globe, The Wall Street Journal, Business Week, Psychology Today, and The Washington Post. He has co-written three academic psychology books, received national journalism awards for reporting on psychiatry, and studied comparative literature at Yale College and Johns Hopkins University.