Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• SENN, M J E

Titel

The psychotherapeutic role of the pediatrician

Ist Teil von

• Pediatrics (Evanston), 1948-08, Vol.2 (3), p.147-153

Ort / Verlag

United States

Erscheinungsjahr

1948

Quelle

MEDLINE

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• THE pediatric literature of this country has always been edectic. In the past few years it has drawn increasingly on material from a variety of sources relating to the psychologic aspects of child care. The number of papers in pediatric journals on child psychology, deviant behavior and mental illness, mental growth and development, psychiatric treatment, sociology, and even anthropology bears witness to this occurrence. Another testimony to the pluralism of pediatric interest is evidenced in the composition of the program of this meeting where one series of papers is devoted to the topic of psychiatry in relation to pediatric practice. In the training of the pediatrician emphasis is also placed on preparation of the physician for multiple and changing roles in work with children and their parents. From the fields of psychology, psychiatry, education, and that less easily classified area which is called, "growth and development," the pediatrician is advised how to make pediatric practice more effective through the use of technics which have been found useful in each of these disciplines. For example, the pediatrician is urged to become acquainted with the facts of growth and development so that as a "developmental pediatrician" he may predict and interpret behavior of children to their parents; and, along with proper understanding of the parents, may relieve their hopes, fears and mental conflicts. In another instance, the educator admonishes the physician to follow him in the use of pedagogic guidance. Still another example may be cited from the field of modern psychiatry where the pediatrician is urged to employ such technics as suggestion, persuasion, reassurance, re-education, desensitization, ventilation and a long list of other psychotherapeutic methods which on the surface appear less formidable and more understandable than many of the words used in psychiatry, but which, nevertheless, need definition and clarification before anybody is able to use them safely in a therapeutic sense. Psychiatry, pediatrics, psychology and education have made contributions to the field of psychotherapy.