Jane Stevens posted:Hi, Elizabeth: I don't think there's much doubt that there's a link between ACEs and PTSD. Many people actually prefer to call it CTSD (chronic traumatic stress disorder). And I prefer to call it a normal reaction to toxic stress caused by ACEs, and not a disorder at all. The toxic stress (allostatic load) research that Dr. Bruce McEwen and others have done are pretty clear on how the physiology works. And the links to the research listed in my previous comment show how military personnel and veterans with high ACE scores have higher incidence of PTSD than those with lower scores. Bessel van der Kolk's book, The Body Keeps the Score might be a useful resource, too.
With most of that room not knowing about ACEs, you have great opportunities ahead of you to do some useful education!
Cheers, Jane
Although, to be honest, I'd personally be VERY careful about calling anything "chronic .... traumatic stress disorder" -- the Americans have been unable to find evidence in their DSM 5 field trials for chronic, or complex, "traumatic stress disorder" / PTSD -- and the two are likely to be easily confused, but they are not the "same". These criteria are scheduled for inclusion in ICD 11 in 2018, so are likely to influence American insurance practices then.
However, European researchers have repeatedly found convincing evidence for a Complex PTSD. Probably the best place, certainly the easiest, place to find "consensus guidelines for Complex PTSD http://www.istss.org/treating-trauma.aspx
and the Society's Trauma Blog has some guidelines for treatment of vets.
The Europeans have developed treatment programs which have gone beyond the consensus guidelines (led by the American Cloitre) -- ask if you'd like some material there -- though some of their latest isn't yet in English.
The "ACEs -- PTSD" research literature is fairly "new", but the research linking early childhood stressors and PTSD has a much longer lineage -- same horse, just a different name. The easiest way to check this is to do an advanced search on Google Scholar between 1980 (DSM III) and 1998, say.