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l'Information Psychiatrique. Volume 84, Number 7, 627-35, Septembre 2008, la prescription chez l’enfant et l’adolescent

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Author(s) : Bertrand Welniarz

Summary : Pyschodynamic approach and drug prescription: how to combine these practices in child and adolescent psychiatryBased on the experience of a child and adolescent consulting centre in which children already receiving psychotherapeutic treatment are approached for the prescription of psychotropic drugs, the author contributes to a theoretical reflexion on a therapeutic approach combining psychodynamics and psychopharmacology. Different psychopathological configurations are illustrated by means of clinical examples and the author argues for the acceptance of such drugs as mediators helping to regenerate the mentalisation capacities of the patient and their entourage. This practice throws into question the identity of the child psychiatrist because of its need for a multilayered clinical reading : symptomatic, syndromic and psychopathological. Theoretical studies should be pursued into this practice with the aim of integrating psychotropic prescription into practice, whilst at the same time remaining in a care project based on a psychodynamic conception.

Keywords : child and adolescent psychiatry, psychodynamic approach, psychotropic drugs, psychopharmacology