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Tag Archives: mental health
The unchurched…Churches don’t welcome people with mental illness
We likely have a minimum of 25 million adults with mental illness who don’t attend church. If the majority of those 25 million adults believe they won’t be welcomed at church, WE HAVE A REALLY BIG PROBLEM.
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When should parents consider non-medical treatment first?
Many mental health conditions are commonly seen in kids for which medication generally isn’t the first step in a well-developed treatment plan. Today, we’ll look at some situations when parents and clinicians might consider non-medical treatment alternatives first. Continue reading
Posted in ADHD, Anxiety Disorders, Controversies, Depression, Families, Hidden Disabilities, Key Ministry, Mental Health
Tagged ADHD, anxiety, children, Depression, families, mental health, non-medical treatment, OCD, Parents, PTSD, teens
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Who’s qualified to prescribe medication for my child?
If you’re open to considering psychotropic medication for your child or teen, you want an experienced clinician who will take the time to fully understand the nature of your child’s difficulties prior to whipping out the prescription pad. You want a clinician who appreciates the benefits and limitations of medication and is capable of recognizing situations when medication makes problems worse. You want a clinician with the time and availability to answer difficult questions when they arise. Continue reading
Posted in Advocacy, Families, Key Ministry, Mental Health
Tagged American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, children, Developmental Pediatrics, medication, mental health, Pediatric Neurology, pediatrics, physician extenders, primary care, psychiatry, teens
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How would I know if my child would benefit from medication?
Given all the controversy generated by the topic of psychiatric medication for kids and teens, I’m frequently asked for guidance and direction from parents and caregivers as to when medication is necessary and appropriate. Here are some clarifying questions I share with parents to help them in their decision making process…
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Posted in ADHD, Controversies, Hidden Disabilities, Mental Health
Tagged children, medication, mental health, Parents, teens
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Does the DSM-5 harm bright kids with learning disabilities?
Given the outsized role these conditions play in children’s mental health, the DSM-5 diagnostic criteria for specific learning disorder represent a major fail for the field. Continue reading
DSM-5: Recognizing the signs of trauma in kids
Most importantly for the sake of our discussion, the symptom thresholds for establishing a diagnosis in children and teens have been changed to take into account differences in the ways that trauma is manifested in kids, and a unique set of diagnostic criteria have been established for identification of PTSD in kids ages six and under.
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Posted in Controversies, Mental Health, Resources
Tagged AACAP, Adoption, children, children's ministry, diagnostic criteria, dsm-5, Foster Care, Inclusion, Key Ministry, mental health, PTSD
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DSM-5: Emphasis on the EPISODIC nature of Bipolar Disorder in kids
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.
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ADHD…DSM-5 criteria validate what’s being done in practice
The most important revisions in the diagnostic criteria take into account the reality that symptoms of ADHD persist into adulthood for many with the disorder, and that the functional impairment associated with ADHD may not be readily apparent for many kids prior to the teen years. Continue reading
Posted in ADHD, Key Ministry, Mental Health
Tagged ADHD, children, diagnostic criteria, dsm-5, medication, mental health, prevalence, teens
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Upcoming Presentation…Ten Questions Parents Often Ask About Kids and Medication
Here are the questions related to kids and medication I’m planning to discuss…
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First impressions of the DSM-5
The weakness is its lack of validity. Unlike our definitions of ischemic heart disease, lymphoma, or AIDS, the DSM diagnoses are based on a consensus about clusters of clinical symptoms, not any objective laboratory measure. In the rest of medicine, this would be equivalent to creating diagnostic systems based on the nature of chest pain or the quality of fever. Indeed, symptom-based diagnosis, once common in other areas of medicine, has been largely replaced in the past half century as we have understood that symptoms alone rarely indicate the best choice of treatment. Continue reading
Posted in Controversies, Mental Health
Tagged children, Dr. Thomas Insel, dsm-5, families, first impressions, mental health, NIMH, psychiatry, teens
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