Recognizing and Treating Uncommon Behavioral and Emotional Disorders in Children and Adolescents Who Have Been Severely Maltreated: Introduction

• NCJ Number: 205425
• Journal: Child Maltreatment Volume: 9 Issue: 2 Dated: May 2004 Pages: 123-130
• Author(s): Jeffrey J. Haugaard
• Date Published: May 2004
• Length: 8 pages
• Sponsoring Agency: New York State
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Issue Overview
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: For other articles in this series, see NCJ-205426-31.

Annotation

This introductory article for the "Special Focus Section" of this issue provides basic guidelines for services to severely maltreated children, adolescents, and their families; presents an overview of the design of the other six articles in this section; and discusses concepts that should be considered when reading these articles.

Abstract

The articles in this section were adapted from clinical guides developed by the New York State Office of Mental Health for the purpose of delivering more effective clinical services for children and adolescents who have been severely maltreated. The two underlying goals of the guides are to encourage clinicians to think more expansively when assessing and treating severely maltreated children and to provide clinicians at all levels of training with sufficient information about several relatively rare disorders, so they can be recognized and, when appropriate, lead to a referral for an appropriate evaluation. The six articles in this section present information on six of the disorders mentioned in the guides. The "severe maltreatment" that is the focus of the articles is generally chronic, involves considerable pain, is physically invasive, or causes the child to fear death or permanent injury. Such maltreatment is likely to result in severe emotional/mental disturbance, whether or not it is evident. In addition to defining "severe maltreatment," this article discusses the usefulness and limitations of focusing on disorders in severely maltreated children; the wide range of necessary interventions; basic issues of concern to those providing services to severely maltreated children; and symptoms, behaviors, and their associated disorders. The latter includes aggression, arousal and agitation, attention problems, behavior fluctuations, comfort-seeking, death and dying, disturbed affect, eating problems, fearful behavior, interpersonal relationships, memory problems, personal appearance, physical symptoms, psychotic symptoms, reckless and defiant behavior, self-harm, sleep disturbances, thinking that is disordered or distorted, and withdrawal and avoidant behaviors. 6 references