1/ The term “disorder” in medicine has always had an uncomfortable relationship with physical injuries & traumatic wounds. Is a gunshot wound to the abdomen a disorder? For many the term connotes endogenous causes & application to injuries is not intuitive for them.

2/ But whether the term applies or not is a trivial issue. The reality of the injury and the disruption of bodily integrity & functioning is apparent to all. A broken wrist has a reality of its own, even if the “cause” was a violent husband & the cause is removed.

3/ Psychological injuries are as real as bodily injuries; the disruption of psychological integrity & functioning is just as apparent. Psychological sequelae of serious trauma have an independent reality of their own just as much as a broken wrist.

4/ The significance of the debate about what to call psychological injuries pales in comparison to the need to identify and address the “wounds”, which have a life of their own beyond the causes which produced them.

5/ “Dysfunction” & “disorder” are clunky ways of acknowledging the reality of injuries, whether they are physical or mental. They do not tell us how or by whose hands healing can happen; only that healing is needed.