Louise Morganstein and Jonathan Hill
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- November 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780199665662
- eISBN:
- 9780191918322
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780199665662.003.0018
- Subject:
- Clinical Medicine and Allied Health, Psychiatry
Child and adolescent psychiatry is the medical specialty that works with children, young people, and families with emotional and behavioural problems. As children and young people are still ...
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Child and adolescent psychiatry is the medical specialty that works with children, young people, and families with emotional and behavioural problems. As children and young people are still developing and grow–ing, their emotional wellbeing and functioning needs to be thought about in this context, making it different from adult psychiatry. Communication with people of all ages is vital within the specialty and information from a wide variety of sources, including parents or carers, school, and peers, is used to inform the clinical picture, in addition to history-taking and direct observations of the child’s behaviour. Play is often used to understand younger children’s thoughts and feelings. In theory, the specialty covers children and young people from birth up to the teenage years, although different services cover slightly different age ranges. The spectrum of difficulties covered within the specialty include psy–chiatric disorders also seen in adults (such as psychosis); problems spe–cific to the age group (such as separation anxiety); lifelong conditions which start in childhood (such as ADHD); and conditions that may pre–sent in different ways in childhood or adolescence (such as phobias). Approaches to treatment include psychopharmacological interven–tions, and numerous therapeutic modalities including family therapy and CBT, which can be modified for different age groups. Most work is community based, although there are specialist inpatient units which offer on-going educational opportunities to young people who need the intensive support and risk reduction of a hospital admission. Work tends to be done within MDTs using a range of knowledge and expertise to offer the most appropriate care.
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Child and adolescent psychiatry is the medical specialty that works with children, young people, and families with emotional and behavioural problems. As children and young people are still developing and grow–ing, their emotional wellbeing and functioning needs to be thought about in this context, making it different from adult psychiatry. Communication with people of all ages is vital within the specialty and information from a wide variety of sources, including parents or carers, school, and peers, is used to inform the clinical picture, in addition to history-taking and direct observations of the child’s behaviour. Play is often used to understand younger children’s thoughts and feelings. In theory, the specialty covers children and young people from birth up to the teenage years, although different services cover slightly different age ranges. The spectrum of difficulties covered within the specialty include psy–chiatric disorders also seen in adults (such as psychosis); problems spe–cific to the age group (such as separation anxiety); lifelong conditions which start in childhood (such as ADHD); and conditions that may pre–sent in different ways in childhood or adolescence (such as phobias). Approaches to treatment include psychopharmacological interven–tions, and numerous therapeutic modalities including family therapy and CBT, which can be modified for different age groups. Most work is community based, although there are specialist inpatient units which offer on-going educational opportunities to young people who need the intensive support and risk reduction of a hospital admission. Work tends to be done within MDTs using a range of knowledge and expertise to offer the most appropriate care.
