The Kids Aren’t Alright: How rigid diagnostic practices compromise emotional and social wellbeing

At no previous time, have children undergone so many assessments and tests, and are given so many diagnoses with such disappointing outcomes. This audio training by Dr. Ruth Schmidt Neven based on her acclaimed presentation given at a Congress of the International Association for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Allied Professions, asks the question ‘how did we get things so wrong? We talk endlessly about promoting wellbeing but rather than focusing on prevention and on strengthening the resources of children, young people and their parents, our current professional practice is predominantly based on identifying deficit and psychopathology in children and young people .By doing so, we silence and marginalize knowledge, research and clinical evidence concerning the meaning of behaviour, the emotional milestones of development, the connecting thread of attachment and bonding, and the systemic contextual foundations of family life.

In this audio- training intended for all clinicians and policy makers concerned with child and family mental health, Dr. Schmidt Neven argues that we need to take a critical view of the predominant bio-behavioural and medical paradigm that is out of step with current times. We need to get away from perceiving child and adolescent behaviour as an irritant and a noise in the system to be disposed of. Rather we need to see their behaviour as an always accurate and precise way in which they ‘speak’ their family and the important relationships in their lives. In her in-depth analysis, Dr. Schmidt Neven addresses the problems associated with a reductionist research model. She introduces an alternative clinical perspective for therapeutic work and makes practical recommendations for how we can better address the promotion of child, adolescent, and family mental health.