Search

In this essay I look at the art of children as a tool in the medical-pedagogical approach, as proposed by the founder of child psychiatry in Portugal, Vítor Fontes (1893-1979). First, the topic of the art of children is introduced, and the second part focuses on the model of medical pedagogy as it was practised in Portugal. The third and fourth parts present Fontes's own investigations on the drawings of children with intellectual disabilities under observation at the Instituto Médico-Pedagógico António Aurélio da Costa Ferreira (IAACF) in Lisbon. In the conclusion it is argued that Fontes contributed to the development of child psychiatry in Portugal by showing that children's art can mirror their cognitive and emotional development.

Historians have examined the role of psychiatric institutions in the USA and addressed whether this form of care helped or harmed patients (depending on the perspective of the time period, historical actors, and historians). But the story for children's mental institutions was different. At the time when adult institutions were in decline, children's mental hospitals were expanding. Parents and advocates clamoured for more beds and more services. The decrease in facilities for children was more due to economic factors than ideological opposition. This paper explores a case study of a hospital in Michigan as a window into the different characteristics of the discussion of psychiatric care for children.

The aim of this article is to describe the nosographical contribution of the Italian psychiatrist Sante De Sanctis (1862-1935) to early twentieth-century child psychiatry. De Sanctis first proposed the category of 'dementia praecocissima' in 1906, and it was recognized by Kraepelin. Dementia praecocissima has its roots in a theoretical and methodological conception of mental disorder based on 'psycho-physical proportionalism' and the 'law of circle'. This article deals with De Sanctis's model, which has so far been neglected by historiographers; it shows the pioneering role that this Italian psychiatrist played in child psychiatry in Italy.

The consensus US (not European) narrative regarding diagnosis and aetiology of autism posits that misguided 'parent-blaming' psychogenic causes were supplanted due to solid research proving the presence of organic causes.Yet, upon scrutiny, it is questionable that the high-functioning, often high-IQ minority--about 15% of those labelled autistic--whose condition Kanner in 1943 first dubbed 'infantile autism' were absorbed into the 'autistic spectrum' on the basis of scientific evidence. Extra-scientific factors must be addressed in order to understand the status of the category today.

This review developed from a discussion with the late Professor Richard Harrington about interventions in Child and Adolescent Mental Health services (CAMHS) that lacked an evidence base. Our aim is to investigate the literature for signs that child psychoanalysis is a declining paradigm within the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) in the United Kingdom (UK). We present the literature chronologically since the inception of the UK National Health Service. This study shows that there have been a number of threats to child psychoanalytic psychotherapy, but no significant consistent decline. The profession is beginning to develop the social profile of a scientific discipline. We conclude that child psychoanalytic psychotherapy does not consistently demonstrate features of a declining scientific paradigm.

In this article we analyse the central features of the establishment and development in Norway of a mental health service for children. Influenced by the movements for mental hygiene and child guidance from the 1920s, Norwegian psychiatrists turned their attention increasingly towards prevention of mental and social problems. During the 1930s, IQ-testing and segregation of troublesome children from school became an important tool for handling children with mental or behavioural problems. With increasing public attention, child mental health activities grew from the late 1940s, and the first regular therapeutic clinic for children was established in 1947. Therapeutic ideas derived from psychoanalytical theory and applied in the new clinics, challenged the dominant view of segregation as a solution to mental and social problems. From 1961 a comprehensive mental healthcare service for children was developed in Norway, and the aim of therapeutic treatment changed gradually from segregation to integration.

When opened as a post-graduate teaching and research hospital in 1923, the Maudsley made virtually no provision for the treatment of children. Yet its children's department saw sustained growth during the interwar period. This expansion is explored in relation to novel behaviourist hypotheses and the forging of formal links with local government and charitable bodies. The recruitment of psychologists, educators and specialist social workers fostered a multidisciplinary approach through case conferences. This development would structure the theoretical origins of child psychiatry, in particular influencing the role and interpretation of psychoanalytic theory within it. The theoretical orientation of child psychiatry and the practical treatment of children represented an area of dynamic change and innovation at a time when adult psychiatry struggled to discover effective treatments or achieve breakthroughs in causal understanding.

In 1932 Franz Kramer (1887-1967) and Hans Pollnow (1902-43) described a hyperkinetic syndrome in children. Basically the symptoms described coincide with what is nowadays regarded as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) or Hyperkinetic syndrome. The authors of the study thus went down in the history of child and adolescent psychiatry with their eponymous Kramer-Pollnow syndrome, and have had a lasting influence on the development of the concepts relating to this topic. Both worked together at the psychiatric and neurological hospital at Berlin's Charité under its head Karl Bonhoeffer, but as they were both Jewish they were forced to emigrate after the Nazis seized power. Until now, little has been known about the further fate and careers, so this study gives the first comprehensive account of their lives, based on documents found in the archives. It also presents an overview of their work.

The German psychiatrist and philosopher Theodor Ziehen (1862-1950), little known in psychiatry today, wrote on of the first systematic treatises on child psychiatry in the early years of the twentieth century. This report provides the first English translation of Ziehen's chapters on major mood disorders of children and adolescents, with detailed biographical notes and commentary on his contributions to the foundation of child psychiatry and to characterizing manic-despressive illness in this age group.

By providing the first description of infantile autism Leo Kanner (1894-1981) has substantially influenced the field of child and adolescent psychiatry. The classification of the disorder seems to be evolving with progress in clinical and diagnostic research, epidemiology and genetics. In the current classification systems of ICD-10 and DSM-IV, Kanner's name is merely mentioned, in contrast to other specified pervasive developmental disorders. This article draws attention to Kanner's early scientific career at Berlin's Charité University Hospital which ended in 1924 with Kanner's emigration to the United States. The study is based on original documents such as the files of Kanner's doctoral thesis on electrocardiography and cardiophonography found at the archives of Humboldt University of Berlin, and his unpublished autobiography, located at the library of the American Psychiatric Association in Washington, DC.