Special Session
Effective Practice-Driven Psychotherapeutic Interventions for Comorbid Disorders in Children
Professor Geanina Cucu-Ciuhan
Department of Psychology and Communication Sciences, Faculty of Education Sciences, Social Sciences and Psychology
University of Pitesti, Romania
&
Clinical Psychologist and Psychotherapist
Minnie Psychological Center, Bucharest, Romania
E-mail: geaninaciuhan@gmail.com
Aim: In child psychotherapy, it’s rare to find a case that fits only one diagnostic, the most frequent cases present comorbid conditions. For example, if we take into account the oppositional defiant disorder in children, in a 2014 study on 622 preschool children, Martin & colleagues concluded that there is an association between oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) and anxiety disorders (AD). (Martin & all. 2014) This kind of complex diagnostic cases have important implications in the psychotherapy practice, bringing the need to design complex intervention programs which follow an algorithm that fits the logic of symptom installation. In our practice, we found out that the oppositionist behaviors in children appear after the onset of the anxiety symptoms, and the effective treatment plan for the child’s oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) should follow the pattern for emotional disorders treatment, using a child and family model of psychotherapy that combine enhancing the parent’s behavior management skills and improving the parent-child emotional relationship with enforcing the child’s self-esteem and ability to recognize and manage his/her own negative emotions. My special session proposal intend to reunite practice specialists form different psychotherapeutic backgrounds, who share their findings on therapeutic complex plans for different combinations of comorbid psychological conditions in children.
Topics:
include child psychotherapeutic plans for comorbid disorders in children. Examples:
- Child psychotherapy plan for comorbid oppositional defiant disorder and anxiety/ depression
- Child psychotherapy plan for comorbid ADHD, oppositional defiant disorder and anxiety/ depression
- Child psychotherapy plan for comorbid ADHD and dyslexia / dysgraphia/ dyscalculia
- Child psychotherapy plan for comorbid oppositional defiant disorder and dyslexia / dysgraphia/ dyscalculia
- Child psychotherapy plan for comorbid autism spectrum disorder and ADHD / dyslexia / dysgraphia/ dyscalculia etc.