This collection of 24 chapters from more than 70 authors endeavours to provide a current overview of evidence-based, or at least evidence-supported, psychological interventions for trauma-related disorders in childhood and adolescence. The first section offers an overview of conceptual issues, including classification of disorders, epidemiology, assessment and some relevant psychological theories of traumatic stress. The second section consists of separate chapters describing a number of different interventions; each chapter offers a description of the theoretical underpinnings of the intervention, a brief explanation of how the intervention is provided, descriptions of any particular challenges and an overview of research evidence. The third section of the book provides descriptions of how interventions can be offered in different settings. The final section offers a summary and attempts to draw some conclusions.

The chapter on classification is particularly valuable and provides a remarkably comprehensive and coherent summary of some of the current diagnostic complexities which result, in part, from the different classifications.

An edited collection of chapters such as this obviously cannot provide a robust systematic review of the evidence for all available approaches. Editors of such collections are therefore in the invidious position of having to choose some interventions for inclusion, whilst necessarily omitting others, without a clear scientific rationale for such choices. As such, some included interventions have evidence which is, according to the book summary, ‘insufficient to determine the level of effectiveness’ (p. 511); whereas other interventions with a similar level of evidence (e.g. play therapy, systemic family therapy, counselling) have been omitted. Similarly, the claims made of support from research evidence have not been subjected to the same level of scrutiny that would be expected in a peer-reviewed systematic review.

Bringing the work of so many proponents of different approaches alongside each other in one volume is an impressive achievement, and this enables the reader to compare and contrast each approach. In particular, reading consecutive chapters covering a number of approaches based on comparable theoretical concepts (trauma-focused CBT; cognitive therapy; prolonged exposure therapy; narrative exposure therapy; STAIR narrative therapy; EMDR and attachment, self-regulation and competency) made the similarities of the approaches particularly apparent. Unfortunately there was little mention of the differences between these approaches, which would have been fascinating (with the exception of Perrin et al., who did make some helpful comments about differences).