Situations involving captivity/entrapment (a situation lacking a viable escape route for the victim or a perception of such) can lead to C-PTSD-like symptoms, which can include prolonged feelings of terror, worthlessness, helplessness, and deformation of ones identity and sense of self.C-PTSD has also been referred to as Enduring Personality Change after Catastrophic Event (EPCACE)  and/or Disorders of Extreme Stress - not otherwise specified (DESNOS)Some researchers believe that C-PTSD is distinct from, but similar to, PTSD, somatization disorder, dissociative identity disorder, and borderline personality disorder. Its main distinctions are a distortion of the persons core identity and significant emotional dysregulation. It was first described in 1992 by American psychiatrist and scholar Judith Lewis Herman in her book Trauma & Recovery and an accompanying article. The disorder is included in the World Health Organizations (WHO) eleventh revision of the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD-11). The C-PTSD criteria has not yet gone through the private approval board of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) for inclusion in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). Complex PTSD is also recognized by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), Healthdirect Australia (HDA), and the British National Health Service (NHS). Symptoms
Children and adolescents
The diagnosis of PTSD was originally developed for adults who had suffered from a single-event trauma, such as rape, or a traumatic experience during a war. However, the situation for many children is quite different.
One of the main justifications offered for this proposed disorder has been that the current system of diagnosing PTSD plus comorbid disorders does not capture the wide array of symptoms in one diagnosis. Because individuals who suffered repeated and prolonged traumas often show PTSD plus other concurrent psychiatric disorders, some researchers have argued that a single broad disorder such as C-PTSD provides a better and more parsimonious diagnosis than the current system of PTSD plus concurrent disorders. Conversely, an article published in BioMed Central has posited there is no evidence that being labeled with a single disorder leads to better treatment than being labeled with PTSD plus concurrent disorders.Complex PTSD embraces a wider range of symptoms relative to PTSD, specifically emphasizing problems of emotional regulation, negative self-concept, and interpersonal problems. Diagnosing complex PTSD can imply that this wider range of symptoms is caused by traumatic experiences, rather than acknowledging any pre-existing experiences of trauma which could lead to a higher risk of experiencing future traumas. It also asserts that this wider range of symptoms and higher risk of traumatization are related by hidden confounder variables and there is no causal relationship between symptoms and trauma experiences. In the diagnosis of PTSD, the definition of the stressor event is narrowly limited to life-threatening events, with the implication that these are typically sudden and unexpected events.