Developmental psychiatry (semester 2)
Professor R Adler and Professor B Tonge
This subject provides candidates with the opportunity to view the evolution of human behaviour through the lifecycle from a developmental perspective. This implies an appreciation of developmental issues such as continuities and discontinuities between childhood and adulthood in both health and psychopathology; the extent to which normality merges with pathology; facilitating and inhibiting factors influencing transitions between developmental phases; age-appropriate, accelerated and delayed development; the effect of individual differences on developmental processes; and the clinical applications of these principles to psychiatric conditions in childhood, adolescence and adulthood. Seminars will focus on bio-psychosocial influences on development from infancy, through childhood, adolescence to adulthood. Emphasis will be placed on the appreciation of interaction between innate biological determinants with environmental provisions (parental, social, cultural) and the developmental lines of an individual's development from biological and early parent-infant relationships. Clinical illustrations will highlight the influence of disability and chronic illness on individual development, both directly and through altered family relationships.
Assessment
Essay: 3000-5000 words
Recommended texts
Quay H C and Werry J S (eds) Psychopathological disorders of childhood 3rd edn, Wiley, 1986
Rutter M (ed.) Developmental psychiatry American Psychiatric Press, 1987
Rutter M and Hersov L (eds) Child and adolescent psychiatry: Modern approaches 2nd edn, Blackwell, 1985
Rutter M and others (eds) Assessment and diagnosis in child psychopathology Guilford Press, 1988
Tonge B J and others (eds) Handbook of studies on child psychiatry Elsevier, 1990