Psychoeducational Workshop

Introduction

Psychoeducation regarding various disorders has long been recognized as an important part of effective treatment (Beardslee, Wright, Rothberg, Salt & Versage, 1996; Brent,Poling, McKain, Baugher, 1983; Glick, Burti, Keigo & Sacks, 1994). Riley Child & Adolescent Psychiatry Services has been in the forefront of psychoeducation. We routinely engage our child and adolescent patients and their parents in an explanation of the specific disorders that affect them and, subsequently, in the process of informed consent/assent for pharmacotherapy as well as other treatment interventions. We are justifiably proud of our tradition of teaching residents and medical students how to conduct a Diagnostic Evaluation, followed by a Disposition Conference with a psychoeducational component.

Our Child Psychiatry faculty have made themselves available to allied health professionals, lay groups and interviewers from the media to discuss a variety of topics, making accessible to professionals and non-professionals alike what we have learned about the disorders we treat. Over the years we have supplemented Facts for Families from the Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry with fact sheets of our own. We design handy and comprehensible educational material to advocacy groups (e.g. Dr. Petti's contribution to CHADD, see reference below), and create videotapes pertaining to psychoactive medications (Stilwell, 1988) and normal moral development (Stilwell, Galvinand Kopta, 1990).

Converging with our experience in traditional psychoeducation is engagement of the child in healing narrative. As we do, so we teach. Each year our residents and interns learn about use of children's favorite fairy tales, (Bettelheim, 1977) mutual storytelling, (Gardner,1971) therapeutic metaphor, (Mills & Crowley,1986, White,1995) bibliotherapy for children, (Berlin & Leventhal, 1991; Thomas, 1991) and bibliotherapy for parents (Laite, Riley Child Psychiatry didactic curriculum, 1994-present).

The idea of psychoeducational material in the format of books for children springs naturally from our use of such therapeutic modalities. Stories mutually told and healing metaphors created in the context of individual and family therapy do not necessarily lose their power once the index case is closed. If the story or the metaphor conveys some truth or truths about the disorder afflicting the child and the nature of the treatment, it maybe recognized for having more general relevance. Hence, there is a discernible pathway beginning in therapeutic metaphor and mutual storytelling in individual cases, merging along the way with pathways of knowledge shared about specific conditions and treatments and issuing in the development of a psychoeducational special needs library. In a way,Riley Children's Psychoeducational Workshop carries on the tradition of the Brothers Grimm, collecting and cultivating stories that merit being told again. Over the last decade, we have contributed to growing psychoeducational literature for children and their families. Subjects range from a child's first visit to a therapist to understanding the nature of encopresis. (Galvin & Ferraro, 1988 a, b, c, 1989; Galvin, Collins, &Ferraro with introduction by S. Blix, 1993; Galvin & Galvin, 1997; Galvin, Stilwell& Ferraro, with introduction by M. Gaffney, 1998).

[Keywords: Psychoeducation, psychiatry, psychiatric]