Adolescent Psychiatry - Volume 2, Issue 4, 2012

Background: Psychologists have long been fascinated by the propensity of young people to engage in self harming and self defeating behavior. One of the first attempts to address this issue was Freud in his seminal article "Beyond the Pleasure Principle" The ideas were further developed by Klein and Menninger and more recently by Noshpitz. Recent empirical models of self harm—which take a descriptive approach—have been pr Read More

Introduction: Depressive disorders among adolescents are public health challenges whether in terms of both morbidity and mortality. Because of the paucity of specific instruments to measure depression in adolescents, we undertook to design and develop a new tool, the ADRS (Adolescent Depression Rating Scale) using a qualitative and quantitative procedure. The psychometric properties of the ADRS have been already pu Read More

Traumatic experience and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is highly prevalent among adolescents hospitalized in psychiatric facilities and also among those who are incarcerated. However, it is often not detected in the course of routine evaluations, even those done by mental health professionals. Lack of recognition of trauma exposure and PTSD in hospitalized or incarcerated adolescents has serious implications. Th Read More

Introduction: Trauma Systems Therapy (TST) intervention arose out of the recognition that the patient population we served, many of whom were suffering from the aftermath of traumatic stress, were not improving from the traditional approaches we were using. Method: This article summarizes the experience of developing an approach to assessment and treatment called trauma systems therapy (TST), that my coll Read More

Emotional dysregulation in childhood, which has been linked to significant social problems in older adolescence, is one of the most common reasons for pediatric mental health treatment and psychiatric hospitalizations. Behavioral approaches to treatment for these disorders are limited, however, resulting in increasing use of restraints and psychotropic drugs. A pilot study was implemented on an inpatient psychiatric unit Read More

Background: We believe that the frequent treatment failure with patients with eating disorders is in part due to the heterogeneity of patients with this diagnosis and to an incomplete understanding of psychopathological factors relevant to prognosis and treatment planning for subgroups of patients. Goals: This ongoing study aimed to investigate the existence of psychopathologically significant dimensions in a sample of patie Read More

Background: Adolescent motherhood has been found to be associated with offspring suicidal behaviour in adolescence in a few cohort and general population studies. Aims: To examine this association in a clinical adolescent population. Method: As part of a continuing study on attempted suicide among adolescents in Northern Greece, 160 cases were examined and compared to a same size general clinical population (all diagnos Read More

This article is an introduction to articles by Peter Pogany-Wnendt and Gottfried Wagner in this issue. In this article the author describes his own experience in coming to terms with his German-American heritage and the role that Germans of his parents' generation in Germany played in the Holocaust. His goal has been to understand how reconciliation can occur between children of Holocaust survivors and children of Nazi sy Read More

Over 70 years have passed since the Holocaust began in Germany. Both victims and perpetrators were for the most part unable to discuss their painful past with their children. On their part children were afraid to ask about their parents' experiences, and engaged in a process of trying to protect their parents. As time has gone on, perpetrators, accomplices, fellow-travelers, and also the victims have died. Their children, w Read More

The various man-made disasters of the twentieth Century, most notably the Holocaust, continue to challenge our attempts to understand how such enormities can occur, and to confront the horror and suffering of victims and witnesses. Social discourse has been concerned with historical truth for both the individual concerned and society in connection with these disasters. At the same time reluctance to know often sets in here Read More

Introduction: Germans who were children during World War II tended not to discuss their experiences, which were often quite traumatic. As they reached their sixties these “war children” began to show signs of posttraumatic reactions and other psychiatric problems. Goals: To describe the characteristics of the German war children—those who were children in Germany during World War II and the Nazi government—and dis Read More

War is a major cause of traumatic stress for children and adolescents. German children who were born just before WWII experienced multiple stresses during and after the war. In addition to the losses and deprivations associated with the war, they had to face the shame of their country's defeat and responsibility for the war, and many lived with the knowledge of their families' complicity in the Nazi atrocities—something th Read More