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A life course perspective is central to developmental psychopathology. Longitudinal research has consistently demonstrated that most adult disorders have roots in childhood difficulties, and most childhood disorders have sequelae that persist to adult life. Identifying the processes that underlie these long‐term continuities and discontinuities is central to the developmental psychopathology approach...
The differences among diagnosis, diagnostic formulations and classification, and between clinical and research classifications, are discussed. The current impossibility of basing classification on brain circuitry is noted. It is argued that both dimensional and categorical approaches are useful, and should be combined because they provide different information. The validation of diagnostic categories...
In this chapter we consider why grouping different neurodevelopmental disorders might be useful for clinical and research purposes and also discuss findings that support this clustering. We then go on to highlight the heterogeneity among them and the implications this has for understanding the meaning of neurodevelopmental impairment.
This chapter explores conceptual issues and empirical challenges in the disruptive behavior disorders (Oppositional Defiant Disorder and Conduct Disorder). It begins by highlighting one central challenge – heterogeneity – and the range of approaches to characterizing the phenotype represented in current research. Building on well‐established findings it describes three possible pathways to disruptive...
Emotions, once the domain of philosophers, theologians, and novelists are now intensely studied by psychiatrists, psychologists, and neuroscientists. In this chapter, I attempt to organise knowledge and examine some of the main concepts in the field. First, I discuss some common definitions of emotion. Second, I probe the idea of basic emotions and their brain correlates. Third, I discuss emotion...
This chapter explains the development of the concept of child attachment, starting with the work of John Bowlby and others. It describes how Mary Ainsworth operationalised the concept with mother‐infant pairs using the strange situation paradigm, then describes how it was further extended by Main and Solomon to add the disorganised attachment category. Evidence for the link with parenting styles such...
During infancy, mental health is closely connected to the quality of caregiving relationships, especially to the mutual adaptation capacity of an infant and his/her parents. Infant mental health also requires capacities and opportunities for rapid developmental processes. This chapter gives an overview of infant psychiatry mostly from a clinical point of view. It includes a description of infant social...
The link between who we are as infants and who we become as adults has been a theme of interest and debate in literature, philosophy, art, and science. Different cultures place relative emphasis on the individual and the social context as being formative for successful adaptive adult functioning. These themes find their way into discussions about nature, nurture and the importance of early experiences...
Neurobiology is a broad field that spans multiple levels from molecular and genetic analyses, through cellular level studies, to the study of neural systems and pathways and how these relate to cognitive functions and behaviour. In this chapter, key issues about plasticity, timing, and constraints on development are presented and related to specific debates in genetics, cellular studies, and to the...
Considerable neuroscience advances have accrued in the past decade that impact conceptualization of mental illness. The current chapter broadly outlines the nature of these advances, and then reviews in more detail the ways in which systems neuroscience can inform clinical thinking. To provide such an illustration, the chapter reviews systems neuroscience research bearing on four sets of clinical...
Several neuroimaging approaches, specifically functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), electroencephalography (EEG), and functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), have emerged over the past two decades as noninvasive methods by which we can reliably examine the function and structure of the developing human brain across the lifespan. The field of child psychiatry can now utilize a “molecules‐to‐mind”...
There is enormous interest in identifying causes of child psychopathology but considerable difficulty in knowing which risks are genuinely causal and in showing how they work. Why is it such a problem and how might we go about testing causal hypotheses? In this chapter we first discuss the threats that clinicians and researchers face in making causal inferences from traditional observational designs,...
This chapter considers how best to plan and structure targeted and specialist services for children and adolescents with existing mental health problems. In particular, we discuss how service developers, providers and commissioners might draw on epidemiological findings and local information to aid the organization, monitoring and funding for such services. We examine both the challenges of using...
“How well will this treatment work for patients like me” is the question that research evaluating interventions is meant to answer for clinicians and their patients. Randomized clinical trials (RCTs) are the “gold standard” against which different research approaches to answering this question are judged. Here discussed are the basic principles underlying RCTs and consideration of a few alternatives...
Statistical methodology plays a critical role in the progression of our scientific understanding by providing a framework which enables hypotheses to be operationalized and tested. This chapter provides an overview spanning study design to reporting results and addresses some of the common advantages and challenges associated with data analysis. Specifically, we cover common methodological misunderstandings,...
This chapter presents key issues in global health applied to child and adolescent psychiatry. It begins by discussing the historical foundations of the concept of international and global health and the relevance of mental disorders to the worldwide burden of disease. It then examines the importance of context heterogeneity and factors associated with mental ill health among children and adolescents,...
This chapter covers prevention of mental disorders and promotion of social and emotional competence in children by focusing on universal and selective prevention. Research primarily in high‐income countries demonstrates that major mental health problems (conduct problems, depression, anxiety, and response to traumatic events) can be reduced through population level preventive interventions and programs...
This chapter discusses the role of health economics in the field of child psychiatry. We start with an overview of the cost implications of child and adolescent mental health problems across a range of health, social care and other sectors, and provide evidence for the long‐term cost consequences of child and adolescent mental health problems as individuals move into adulthood. We then describe the...
Mental health professionals are unlikely to turn to the law to resolve difficulties over treating their young patients unless they have exhausted all other options. This is wise since the law is a blunt instrument which may polarise positions, making future relationships and treatment more difficult. But although legal proceedings should be regarded as a last resort, it is useful for medical practitioners...
This chapter focuses on the reliability of children's autobiographical memory. We do this by first outlining the basic elements of suggestive interviews and elucidating some basic scientific principles to be used as guides when evaluating reliability or taint in interviews with children who claim to have been participants or observers of an event. Then we apply this scientific foundation to evaluating...
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