Contrary to the standard assumption that psychopathology stems from developmentalimmaturity (retardation, fixation, regression), people diagnosed with psychopathology typicallydevelop along distinctive pathways in which they build complex, advanced skills. Thesepathways are based on adaptation to trauma, such as maltreatment, or to problems inaffective–cognitive regulation, such as those in autism. They do not fit normativedevelopmental frameworks. Research has characterized several types of distinctive pathways,especially those arising from maltreatment; they are marked by normal developmentalcomplexity but distinctive affective–cognitive organization. In one study sexually abuseddepressed adolescent girls admitted for treatment in a mental hospital describedthemselves-in-relationships with age-appropriate, complex developmental levels equal to thoseof both nonabused depressed girls and other adolescents. At the same time, they showed apowerful negativity bias contrasting with the positivity biases of other girls. Many of themproduced dramatic switches in affective–cognitive organization across assessmentscontrasting with the similar organization showed by other girls. In another study toddlers frommaltreating families showed a consistent negativity bias in play and representations ofinteractions. We show how to portray these distinctive developmental pathways through theexample of Hidden Family Violence, in which people dissociate their private violent world fromtheir public, good-citizen world.