Author Archives: Dr. G

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About Dr. G

Dr. Stephen Grcevich serves as President and Founder of Key Ministry, a non-profit organization providing free training, consultation, resources and support to help churches serve families of children with disabilities. Dr. Grcevich is a graduate of Northeastern Ohio Medical University (NEOMED), trained in General Psychiatry at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation and in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at University Hospitals of Cleveland/Case Western Reserve University. He is a faculty member in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at two medical schools, leads a group practice in suburban Cleveland (Family Center by the Falls), and continues to be involved in research evaluating the safety and effectiveness of medications prescribed to children for ADHD, anxiety and depression. He is a past recipient of the Exemplary Psychiatrist Award from the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). Dr. Grcevich was recently recognized by Sharecare as one of the top ten online influencers in children’s mental health. His blog for Key Ministry, www.church4everychild.org was ranked fourth among the top 100 children's ministry blogs in 2015 by Ministry to Children.

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD): A category unto itself…

Posted on June 21, 2013 by Dr. G

Some of the conditions included in this new category (in addition to OCD) include…Body Dysmorphic Disorder, Hoarding Disorder, Trichotillomania (Hair-Pulling Disorder) and Excoriation (skin-picking) Disorder. Continue reading →

Posted in Controversies, Families, Hidden Disabilities, Mental Health | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Why after all the hard, did you choose hard again? Guest blogger Matt Mooney

Posted on June 16, 2013 by Dr. G

If I have learned anything from walking a road of loss- one I begged not to go down, then it is encompassed in the following words as best as I am able. God is not about our comfort. He is about His kingdom coming to this earth. And when we seek our own happiness in the ways that seem so native to our mind, we walk straightway into a most miserable life.

His ways are not our ways.
Continue reading →

Posted in Adoption, Families, Stories | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

DSM-5: Rethinking Reactive Attachment Disorder

Posted on June 13, 2013 by Dr. G

There are many reasons why children adopted from orphanages and children in foster care frequently exhibit severe problems with conduct and emotional self-regulation. Effects of trauma and neglect upon brain development combined with genetic and environmental influences appear to be responsible in most instances…as opposed to a primary attachment disorder. Continue reading →

Posted in Adoption, Controversies, Families, Foster Care, Hidden Disabilities, Key Ministry, Mental Health | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 81 Comments

Ten Questions About Kids and Medication Lecture CANCELED. Here’s the alternate plan…

Posted on June 11, 2013 by Dr. G

Since there was lots of interest in the topic of frequently asked questions about kids and medication , I’ll cover each of the questions I’d planned to address during the lecture in a blog series we’ll run through July, following our current series on the changes in diagnostic criteria included in the DSM-5. Continue reading →

Posted in Controversies, Families, Key Ministry, Mental Health, Resources | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Why the decision to eliminate Asperger’s Disorder was absurd…

Posted on June 9, 2013 by Dr. G

From a clinician’s standpoint, kids with Asperger’s are VERY different from kids with “classic” autism. Kids with Asperger’s have the intelligence and language skills to very effectively communicate their thoughts and perceptions. They also have a far greater capacity for self-awareness of their social deficits…and are far more amenable to treatment interventions to ameliorate their weaknesses in social situations. They’re so different that the vast preponderance of kids with traditional autism in our community receiving medical intervention are seen by developmental pediatricians and pediatric neurologists, not child psychiatrists. Continue reading →

Posted in Autism, Controversies, Hidden Disabilities, Key Ministry | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Social (Pragmatic) Communication Disorder…not quite Asperger’s

Posted on June 7, 2013 by Dr. G

SCD has become the diagnostic category for kids who look like those with Asperger’s Disorder, but don’t meet full criteria for an autism spectrum disorder.
Continue reading →

Posted in Controversies, Hidden Disabilities, Mental Health | Tagged , , , , , | 8 Comments

DSM-5: Emphasis on the EPISODIC nature of Bipolar Disorder in kids

Posted on June 5, 2013 by Dr. G

During the latter decades of the 20th century, this contention by researchers that severe, nonepisodic irritability is a manifestation of pediatric mania coincided with an upsurge in the rates at which clinicians assigned the diagnosis of bipolar disorder to their pediatric patients. This sharp increase in rates appears to be attributable to clinicians combining at least two clinical presentations into a single category. That is, both classic, episodic presentations of mania and non-episodic presentations of severe irritability have been labeled as bipolar disorder in children. In DSM-5, the term bipolar disorder is explicitly reserved for episodic presentations of bipolar symptoms.
Continue reading →

Posted in Bipolar Disorder, Families, Mental Health | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder (DMDD)…A necessary response to the “bipolar” epidemic

Posted on June 2, 2013 by Dr. G

Adding diagnostic criteria to the DSM-5 for DMDD is a significant plus for kids if the new guidelines help clinicians to be more thoughtful in evaluating kids with moodiness and irritability. Continue reading →

Posted in ADHD, Controversies, Key Ministry, Mental Health | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 10 Comments

The “R-word” has been banished…new criteria for intellectual disability

Posted on May 30, 2013 by Dr. G

The most important change in the new criteria involves a decrease in the emphasis upon intelligence tests in the classification of intellectual disability in favor of a severity of impairment classification based upon adaptive functioning along with intelligence testing. Continue reading →

Posted in Controversies, Hidden Disabilities, Intellectual Disabilities, Mental Health | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment