Coverage of child maltreatment and adult trauma in graduate psychopathology textbooks

Undergraduate psychology textbooks often present trauma, particularly child maltreatment (CM) and its consequences, inadequately or inaccurately. Adequate education about CM and adult trauma (AT) is crucial because they are prevalent and their health impacts are widespread and enduring. Furthermore, mental health professionals are called upon to treat disorders and problematic behaviors associated with trauma yet have often not received adequate knowledge and training about trauma and its treatment. This is the first study to investigate the adequacy and accuracy of the coverage of CM and AT in graduate psychology psychopathology textbooks.

To address this gap, we reviewed and scored 10 graduate psychology psychopathology textbooks to determine the adequacy, completeness, and balance in their coverage of CM and AT.

There was a surprisingly wide range of scores, with some textbooks presenting little research on trauma or unbalanced coverage of trauma-related debates. Even the texts that earned the highest scores could more fully address trauma and/or provide more balanced discussion of debates.

Graduate textbooks would benefit from increased attention to, and more balanced coverage of, CM and AT. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).