ACAMH Website Content Types
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Parenting practices that support the sensation-seeking child
Sensation-seeking is a personality trait of people who go after varied, novel, complex and intense situations and experiences. Sensation-seekers are even willing to take risks in the pursuit of such experiences. Until now, research has primarily focused on how sensation seeking relates to the development of undesirable behaviours, including drug and alcohol abuse, high risk sexual behaviours (like unprotected sex or having multiple partners), gambling and delinquency.
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Psychological interventions have a small but significant effect in young children with conduct disorder
In 2017, Mireille Bakker and colleagues performed a systematic review and meta-analysis for the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, of the currently available psychological treatments for children and adolescents with conduct disorder problems. Here, we summarise the researcher’s key findings and the potential clinical implications for this field.
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In Conversation… OCD
Dr Amita Jassi & Dr Gazal Jones talk to freelance journalist Jo Carlowe about Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
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PTSD edition
Trauma can occur in many forms from single exposure to a life-threatening or fear-inducing event, to sustained trauma ranging from neglect, other abuses, famine or war. All of which can present in clinical practice.
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Practitioner recommendations for PTSD: a 2018 update
In 2018, Patrick Smith, Tim Dalgleish and Richard Meiser-Stedman compiled a Practitioner Review for the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and its treatment in children and adolescents. In their report, the researchers provide updates on the estimated rates of trauma exposure, and the incidence and course of PTSD in children.
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Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing improves PTSD symptoms in children
Practice guidelines for childhood post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) recommend trauma-focused psychological therapies as the first-line treatment. The primary approach is trauma-focused cognitive behavioural therapies, which have a large evidence base.
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Trauma-focused group intervention is superior to usual care for young refugees
Data from a randomised controlled trial show that trauma-focused group intervention delivered by trained social workers in addition to usual care (UC) is more effective in reducing post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) in young refugees than UC alone.
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Foster care promotes adaptive functioning in early adolescence among children who experienced severe, early deprivation.
Experiences in our early life can have long-term consequences on development. Children who have experienced severe deprivation, in the form of institutional care (orphanages), are at greater risk to experience a range of social, emotional, and cognitive difficulties. In fact, much of the research tracing long-term consequences of early adversity have come from a deficit model (i.e., “what goes wrong for those with negative experiences”).
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Early cognitive therapy for traumatised young people works and is also cost-effective
More than half of children and adolescents will experience traumatic events like vehicle accidents, house fires, or violence. However, brief counselling for young people in the immediate aftermath of an acute traumatic event has not be shown to be any more effective than not intervening and allowing natural recovery to take its course.
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Parental responses in predicting children’s PTSD
Many children will be exposed to a potentially traumatic situation at some point in their childhood -that is, an event where there is a potential threat to life or of serious injury to the child, or to someone close to them. These events can range from common unintentional or accidental traumas, such as car accidents or serious sporting accidents, to deliberate harm, such as assault or maltreatment. Such trauma exposure can have a significant negative impact on a child’s psychological wellbeing.
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