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The two reports published in this volume were both made by the Committee on Child Psychiatry of the Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry. “The Diagnostic Process in Child Psychiatry” (Report 38) antedates “From Diagnosis to Treatment” (Report 87) by sixteen years. Interestingly, there is no discernible sociological naïiveté in the former, nor does one encounter self-conscious modernism in the latter. Both reports are timely and a continuity of thought and attitude pervades them.
Report 38 describes the diagnostic process in a psychiatric clinic for children. Aside from an ambiguously worded though appropriate caveat against the performance of physical examinations by psychiatrists on their future therapy patients, it represents a distillation of sound clinical knowledge. In both this and the later report one discerns a flexibility born of collective interdisciplinary experience—through the vicissitudes of social and political change, as well as specific administrative reasoning—that makes the information useful in many settings.
Report 87 begins with an historical introduction to the diagnosis and treatment of childhood disorders and makes references to both the wild boy of Aveyron and Little Hans. Spiced by apt quotations from John Gregory and Francis Bacon, as well as a relaxed and winning style, it discusses various aspects of the theory and practice of integrating an accurate diagnostic assessment and an effective treatment plan.
Perhaps most interesting is the final sections which presents the responses of several consultants to the same blind case material. The consultants were working in a variety of treatment settings, and yet their diagnostic impressions of Janie and Billy, and significant characteristics of their treatment plans, are suprisingly consistent. Although their modes of implementation vary, a sound body of clinical thinking emerges.
The Committee on Child Psychiatry ultimately intends to combine this report with others in the series. The resultin