Martin J. Drell

The “Achievement by Proxy” Spectrum: Recognition and Clinical Response to Pressured and High-Achieving Children and Adolescents

What is required to produce a 6-year-old beauty queen. a 7year-old pilo t. a I4-year-old Olympic gold medalist gymnast. a l S-year-old champion ice hockey player. a 16-year-old Rachmaninoff virtuoso. a 12-year-old movie actor, or a 15year-old university student? We may admire, envy. or even attempt to emulate these children and their parents. Nevertheless. medical and mental health professionals should also consider the realistic dangers and potential costs children may incur in the process of fostering their precociousness and exceptional talents. In this article, we review the potential problems these children face by conceptualizing a spectrum of achievement by proxy (ABP) behavior. (Ogilvie et al., 1998; Tofler et al., 1998).

Didactic Modules for Curricular Development in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Education

A group of child and adolescent psychiatry educators in the Association for Academic Psychiatry have developed didactic aids, termed modules,for curricular development in child psychiatry training programs. These modules consist of sets of references designed to communicate the essence of a subject area. The design is flexible, allowing the modules to be used by programs with varying amounts of time available for teaching the designated subject. The project has been endorsed by the major organizations representing education in child psychiatry. Eight modules are available for distribution, and a mechanism is in place for creating others. The authors believe this concept will be equally useful in adult psychiatry programs.

Teaching Psychodynamic Therapy During Difficult Times: One Child Training Director’s Experience

In a 2007 article titled “The Impending and Perhaps Inevitable Collapse of Psychodynamic Psychotherapy as Performed by Psychiatrists and Other Related Calamities” [1], which is loosely based on concepts elucidated in Jared Diamond’s 2004 book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed [2], I discussed general contributing factors that threatened the place of psychodynamic psychiatry in the psychiatry training curriculum and in its overall scope of practice. The systemically related factors, listed without consideration of their importance in the ultimate process, included the below items:

A multimodal treatment strategy for behavior problems in toddlers

The article focuses on a multimodal strategy for the treatment of behavior problems commonly associated with toddlers. These problem behaviors, which include temper tantrums, bedtime and sleep difficulties, aggressiveness, not listening, and eating problems, are among the most often presented to mental health professionals who deal with this age group. The treatment approach, which combines clinically pertinent aspects of dynamic, behavioral, and family approaches, includes the following components: data collection (problem clarification, family-of-origin interviews, interactional sessions), formulation of hypotheses, introduction of a behaviorally oriented management program, tracking of problems inherent in the implementation and successful management of the behavioral program, and booster sessions. The treatment strategy is illustrated by a clinical case. Each component of the treatment, along with its inherent clinical problems/difficulties, is discussed.