Child psychiatry
Child psychiatry is the medical discipline that focuses on understanding, diagnosing, preventing, and treating psychiatric disorders in children by addressing their biopsychosocial development and current mental health needs. It emphasizes early intervention to mitigate future negative consequences and views childhood and adolescence as critical periods that shape the mental health trajectory into adulthood.
The field is differentiated because of its emphasis on developmental ages in a child. Practitioners consider how age interacts with cognitive capacity, emotional regulation, and social influences in shaping children's mental health.
A multidisciplinary approach characterises child psychiatry: Child psychiatrists work closely with psychologists, paediatricians, educators, social workers, and speech therapists to provide comprehensive care. Treatment often involves collaboration with the child’s family to address environmental and relational factors.
Child and adolescent psychiatry has been an established field for about 50 years, growing significantly in the 20th century. The discipline emerged to address unique mental health issues in children, recognizing that adult mental health problems often originate in childhood.
The first globally recognized work, which outlines the stages of the child’s development (from birth to the age of three years), was the book “The Soul of the Child” (“Die Seele des Kindes”) by W. Preyer. It has become the basis of systematic child research in the whole world.
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