It's more of a category that Dusty Miller proposes in her book. It makes sense to me, as I agree that maybe it doesn't matter so much which coping methods are chosen, but that we do that stuff for a reason, and we need to find a way to heal from the trauma we have experienced, and to take care of ourselves and protect ourselves, and not keep hurting ourselves over and over.

The people that the author describes in the book would probably be given various diagnoses such as eating disorders, BPD, PTSD, dissociative disorders, depression, etc. Diagnoses are just a way of describing the symptoms though, and diagnostic categories change all the time, as professionals decide these should be lumped together, and this one is really two or more different things, and here's something we hadn't picked up on before but more and more people are having those symptoms now, ... I don't know if they will ever add trauma reenactment syndrome to the DSM, but there is recognition that many diagnoses or sets of symptoms are often trauma-related. There are also therapists who specialize in treating trauma.