The article examines the adverse health effects of political terror and community violence on the minds and bodies of children, posttraumatic symptoms and responses to violence, a prescribed assessment process, and a model of intervention called "posttraumatic child therapy (P-TCT)." Posttraumatic assessment of children victimized by political or community violence is a critical dimension of clinical treatment. The article discusses P-TCT as a system of care and therapy, incorporating into its methods cognitive, behavioral and psychodynamic procedures. This treatment approach includes behavioral traumatic stress management; techniques to alter the child's cognitive theories of self, trauma, and world; and the careful timing of the use of transference work to help repair the rupture in the fabric of the child's attachment capabilities. References