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PERSPECTIVE article
Front. Psychiatry
Sec. Adolescent and Young Adult Psychiatry
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2025.1541905
This article is part of the Research Topic Getting Diagnosis Right in Child Psychiatry: Lessons From the Pediatric Bipolar Disorder Era View all 5 articles
Pediatric Bipolar Disorder versus Developmental Trauma and Holistic Assessment and Care: The Contribution of Dr Ed Levin
Provisionally accepted- 1 School of Medicine, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia
- 2 College of Medicine and Public Health, Flinders University, Bedford Park, South Australia, Australia
This perspective article presents the work of Dr Edmund (Ed) C Levin (1931-2022), child and adolescent psychiatrist in Berkeley, California. Levin drew from over half a century of continuity of clinical practice with his patients and knowledge of developmental psychopathology. He was witness to a paradigm shift in American psychiatry from what Eisenberg termed a ‘brainless’ to a ‘mindless’ approach in research and clinical practice. He was motivated by concern for medical ethical treatment guided by awareness of the patient’s individual biopsychosocial contributing factors to their predicament and symptoms. He addressed the pediatric bipolar disorder era by championing a recognition of the long-term effects of childhood maltreatment and developmental trauma across the lifespan. His work in both child and youth residential and geriatric residential units exemplified this.
Keywords: Psychiatric Diagnosis, developmental trauma, complex ptsd, Overmedicalization, iatrogenic drug use, Trauma informed care, Pediatric Bipolar Disorder, childhood maltreatment
Received: 09 Dec 2024; Accepted: 07 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Parry. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Peter Parry, School of Medicine, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia
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