Adolescent Psychiatric care

[pammypoo]

I am looking for new approaches to use in caring for adolescents who somaticize constantly almost in an avoidance pattern. how do you deal with the somatic complaints without spending all your time in the ER rather than dealing with the problems that have landed them in the hospital? Also how to cut down on over reactive adolescent girls who can find nothing better to do than carve on their arms and seek undivided attention from staff through their self abusive but not life threatening ways?

[toyrn]

I think that decidding someone does something because they "have nothing better to do" is not accurate. People, especially young folks, hurt themselves to get attention. It is a fact that many people who actually complete a suicide had no intention of killing themselves, they were just trying to get someone's attention. You cannot put a time limit on how long you spend with a person, whether it is ion the ER or elsewhere. Stress and snxiety are major triggers for somatic complaints, so you will need to spend the extra time diggin into the root of their admission. It is more socially acceptable to have a physical complaint thatn to have a mental one when you are under stress so. Also, the more and longer they are in the ER, the more attention they are getting which is probably somehting they are missing elsewhere.