Child and Adolescent Psychotherapists focus on the child’s and young person’s internal capacities and how these impact or interact with their illness. This can be identified at the point of assessment to some degree and will then be work with in short- or long term psychotherapeutic work depending on need.
Some examples of these types of work include:
- Assessment of emotional and psychological difficulties promoted by or linked to physical illness. These may include anxiety, depression, and attachment issues, challenging behaviour, eating difficulties, etc.
- Facilitating understanding of response to and the impact of diagnosis and treatment
- Facilitate acceptance and adjustment to chronic medical conditions
- Support adherence to the medical treatment
- Perinatal work supporting mother-infant bonding including on special care units
- Formulation of treatment based on psychoanalytic framework if appropriate or a referral to relevant members of the mental health multi-disciplinary team if not.
- Trauma and bereavement work, including working with siblings and other family members
- Transition clinics to support young people’s progression to adult services.
- Psychotherapeutic group work with children, young people, families
- Psycho-educational work with other professionals
- Referral to appropriate child and adolescent mental health services in the community when appropriate.#