What subjects are in children’s mental health?

Most of the time, priority is given to child psychiatry. If the hospital does not have a dedicated child psychiatry department, you can choose the clinical psychology department, psychosomatic medicine department of a general hospital, or the psychological outpatient clinic under the child health department of a children's specialist hospital or maternal and child health hospital.

Last week, I met a father who brought a 10-year-old girl to a doctor. He noticed that the baby always scratched his arms with the tip of a compass. He was afraid of going to the hospital and labeling the baby "mentally ill." So he went to a social psychological institution recommended by the school for three months of sandbox intervention. However, his condition was still good and bad, and he even refused to go to school. I had the courage to come to the hospital, but at the beginning, I applied for the wrong general child insurance number. After the doctor's evaluation, I found that the baby was already moderately depressed with anxiety, so he was quickly transferred to the child psychiatry department, where he was given a small dose of antidepressants and weekly psychological counseling. After half a month, the baby was willing to take the initiative to talk to his parents.

In fact, many parents are now struggling with the choice of registration. Essentially, they have concerns about child psychiatry. They always feel that "going to psychiatry means that the child has a serious illness." There are also many people who think that going to psychiatry for ordinary emotional problems will be over-medicated. They would rather go to a psychological consultation without medical qualifications than go to an outpatient clinic. This kind of worry is understandable, but there is no need to be overly nervous. If your child is just not adapting to the new school, has a short-term bad mood after a conflict with classmates, or is a little afraid of the dark and sleeping alone, and other minor behavioral problems, but it does not affect normal eating, sleeping and school, then it is okay to seek counseling from a regular psychological intervention studio or a child care psychological clinic first. However, if the child has been depressed/irritated for more than two weeks, is unable to go to school normally, has thoughts of self-injury or suicide, or can hear invisible people talking to him, or has obvious hyperactivity and tics that cannot be controlled, he must go to a child psychiatry department as soon as possible. After all, only licensed psychiatrists have the right to prescribe and can judge whether the child needs to cooperate with drug treatment. Other departments or consulting agencies cannot do this.

The first reaction of many parents is to go to general pediatrics. In fact, most doctors in general pediatrics focus on physical diseases and do not know much about children's psychological and mental diseases. It is easy to regard tics as bad habits and depression as children's pretentiousness, which in turn delays the opportunity for intervention. To put it bluntly, just like you wouldn’t go to the orthopedics department when your child has a cough, you should go to the corresponding specialist for any problem. You don’t need to add too many extra biases to the department. Early detection and early intervention are the most practical for the child.