Functional Somatic Symptoms in Children and Adolescents

Book Description

This open book sets out the stress-system model for functional somatic symptoms in children and adolescents. The book begins by exploring the initial encounter between the paediatrician, child, and family, moves through the assessment process, including the formulation and the treatment contract, and then describes the various forms of treatment that are designed to settle the child's dysregulated stress system. This approach both provides a new understanding of how such symptoms emerge - typically, through a history of recurrent or chronic stress, either physical or psychological - and points the way to effective assessment, management, and treatment that put the child (and family) back on the road to health and well-being.

Kasia Kozlowska is a child and adolescent psychiatrist at The Children's Hospital at Westmead and Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry and of Child and Adolescent Health at the University of Sydney Medical School, Australia.

Stephen Scher is Senior Editor, Harvard Review of Psychiatry, and Lecturer in Psychiatry, McLean Hospital, Harvard Medical School, USA, and the University of Sydney Medical School, Australia.

Helene Helgeland is a child and adolescent psychiatrist at Oslo University Hospital. She is the head of Norway's National Advisory Unit on Complex Psychosomatic Disorders in Children and Adolescents.

This open book is licensed under a Creative Commons License (CC BY-NC-ND). You can download Functional Somatic Symptoms in Children and Adolescents ebook for free in PDF format (5.3 MB).