June 26th 2024
Mental health clinicians and legal practitioners can learn more about parental alienation and its treatment here.
When most people think of bullying, they envision the schoolyard thug verbally or physically threatening hapless victims on the playground or on the school bus. The past few years, however, have witnessed a new type of bullying-cyber bullying-also known as electronic bullying or online social cruelty.
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Adolescents who present with symptoms that suggest a psychotic disorder pose a number of diagnostic and treatment challenges. This article attempts to provide a practical guide to the assessment and management of adolescents with severe psychotic illness, including schizophrenia, schizophrenia-like disorders, and bipolar disorder.
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Adolescent Nonsuicidal Self-Injury: Evaluation and Treatment
June 2nd 2008In working with adolescents, mental health care professionals often draw on their own developmental experiences to help guide their patients; however, nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) is not likely to be a personal experience that psychiatrists can often draw on.
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Child and Adolescent Psychiatry: The Next 10 Years
May 2nd 2008Psychiatry is changing so rapidly that it seems impossible to predict 1 year ahead, let alone 10 years. In 1967, when my psychiatry training ended, the community psychiatry movement had just begun, DSM-II was in the works, and the biological revolution was still around the corner.
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Psychiatric Medication Guidelines Set for Preschoolers
March 1st 2008Concern about the rising number of preschool-age children receiving atypical antipsychotics, α-agonists, or other psychotherapeutic medications recently motivated pediatric mental health professionals to develop best-practice algorithms for psycho-pharmacological treatment of young children. It also prompted some states and mental health providers to initiate medication monitoring and consultation programs.
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Atypical Antipsychotics for Treatment of Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders
March 1st 2008The number of prescriptions for antipsychotic treatment of teenagers has increased sharply in office-based medical practice. Adolescents with psychotic symptoms frequently present for clinical evaluation, and early-onset schizophrenia spectrum disorders (onset of psychotic symptoms before the age of 18 years) represent an important consideration in the differential diagnosis in these youths
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Lewis's Child and Adolescent Psychiatry: A Comprehensive Textbook, 4th ed.
January 1st 2008As an educator who still considers textbooks essential tools because of their utility as starting points for learning and exploration, I am pleased that the new edition of Lewis's Child and Adolescent Psychiatry has arrived. The current version lives up to its title; it remains a basic text that provides an overview of child and adolescent psychiatry that is useful and accessible for students and practitioners.
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Perspectives on Consultation-Liaison in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
October 1st 2007Child and adolescent psychosomatic medicine, usually in the realm of the pediatric psychiatric consultation-liaison service, seeks to address the complex relationship between a child's physical illness and affective state with the goal of improving the child's emotional well-being.
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New Practice Parameter for ADHD
October 1st 2007The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry recently published a practice parameter with evidence-based guidelines for the assessment and treatment of children and adolescents with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Recommendations for the best treatment practices were made based on empirical evidence and clinical consensus, and the strength of these recommendations was based on the extent and degree of these variables. This column will provide a summary of the parameter.
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Children and Video Games: How Much Do We Know?
October 1st 2007There is no shortage of hyperbole when politicians of all stripes describe the nature and effects of video games. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney proclaimed, "Pornography and violence poison our music and movies and TV and video games.
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The Complex Issue of Attachment Disorders
October 1st 2007Attachment may be defined as a composite of behaviors in an infant, toddler, or young child that is designed to achieve physical and emotional closeness to a mother or preferred caregiver when the child seeks comfort, support, nurturance, or protection.
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Nonverbal Learning Disabilities and Sensory Processing Disorders
August 1st 2007In our presentation at the 2006 annual meeting of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, we suggested that child psychiatrists who come across a child with the profile of the following hypothetical case should consider whether the child may have deficits that are not currently covered by DSM-IV nosology: either a nonverbal learning disability (NVLD) or a sensory processing disorder (SPD).
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Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
July 1st 2007One of the major challenges in child psychiatry is teaching the essentials of the field to the general physician or medical school student who needs some understanding of developmental issues and psychopathology. Dorothy Stubbe's contribution to this challenge is a small and well-written handbook published as part of the series, Practical Guides in Psychiatry.
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Special Risk Management Issues in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
July 1st 2007Numerous studies have documented the increasing prevalence of mental health and substance abuse issues in youths nationwide. As many as 1 in 5 children and adolescents in the United States have a behavioral or emotional disorder.
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Recognition of Amygdala Abnormalities in ASDs Spurs Rehabilitative Modalities
March 1st 2007Recent imaging studies have shown that patients with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) who were presented with images of human faces had lower responses in amygdala activity than controls. These studies strengthen the connection between the amygdala and the abnormal social-emotional behavior seen in patients with ASDs, said Chris Ashwin, PhD, senior research associate at the Autism Research Centre in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Cambridge, UK.
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Until recently, there has been a relative paucity in the selection of comprehensive child psychiatry textbooks for clinicians. Child and Adolescent Psychiatry: The Essentials finds a place in this special niche by providing comprehensive yet practical information that can be used in a variety of settings.
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Child and Adolescent Psychiatry: Update on the Antidepressant Controversy
April 1st 2006A black box warning about increased suicidality in pediatric patients is now required for all antidepressant medications. This column reviews a number of studies on this topic that were published after the FDA advisory was issued.
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Evidence-Based Therapies in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
September 1st 2005Evidence-Based Therapies in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry by Jon McClellan, M.D. Given the lack of large, randomized controlled studies of psychiatric medications that involve children and adolescents, it can be difficult to establish evidence-based therapies that are effective for this population. However, there are studies that have shown the effectiveness of various medications, as well as for various psychotherapy techniques.
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Cognitive Side Effects of Antiepileptic Drugs in Children
September 1st 2005Antiepilepsy drug use in children presents special challenges because, unlike adults, treatment-emergent neuropsychological deficits occur against the backdrop of cognitive and psychosocial development, with treatment decisions having lifelong implications.
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Behavioral and Pharmacologic Treatment of Aggression in Children With Autism
This article will provide an overview of treatment modalities, with emphasis on the future direction of interventions targeting aggression in children with autism.
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