Scream clinic

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Crying babies" are treated in a crying clinic . These are infants who attract attention through “ excessive crying ”, but also infants who show sleep and feeding disorders, for example, which are summarized under the regulatory disorders in infancy . Sometimes, however, all psychological problems of children and their parents up to the age of three are treated there.

history

The first crying outpatient clinic in the Federal Republic of Germany was the “Munich Office Hours for Crying Babies” opened in 1991 by Mechthild Papoušek at the Munich Children's Center . There are now advice centers for parents with babies and small children in children's clinics, educational counseling centers with resident psychotherapists and similar institutions in all major German cities. Day clinics such as the family day clinic in Dresden and the family day clinic in Münster have now joined the outpatient departments from Hamburg to Munich.

Description of the problem

According to the so-called 3x3 Wessel rule, screaming that goes beyond the average level, defined by a screaming and whining duration of more than three hours on more than three days per week for at least three weeks. According to this definition, around 13% of babies are affected. Parents often feel helpless because strategies for dealing with the cry baby are often lacking. Excessive screaming can trigger feelings of guilt in the parents, which - depending on the severity of the screaming and depending on the support in the family system - can also turn into aggression. Often the latter is the reason for a presentation in the scream clinic.

Professional help in a crying clinic is also appropriate if parents feel overwhelmed with their baby's crying behavior or if they have feelings of powerlessness or helplessness .

Treatment spectrum

Most often a multifactorial genesis of excessive crying is suspected. The causes are, for example, stress in the infant during birth or in the mother during pregnancy, in other stressful factors in the parents or in regulatory and adjustment disorders in the child. Modern infant research assumes that all the crying is an expression of delayed behavioral regulation. In other words, these babies have more trouble finding their way around after birth than others and that is why they cry so much. These early regulation disorders include "problems regulating the sleep-wake phases (problems falling and staying asleep), feeding disorders, motor restlessness and reluctance to play", "excessive clinging", "defiance and aggressive behavior". Intra-family relationship disorders and especially attachment disorders between child and caregiver can also lead to excessive crying. The term crying outpatient clinic is therefore no longer applicable in most cases because the whole range of early childhood regulatory disorders is treated.

Diagnosis

Often, when the children are presented to a crying clinic, they have already had a long career in medical somatic diagnostics. Otherwise, this takes place in the screaming clinic or is arranged by them to rule out physical causes of the screaming. Then there is the psychological / psychiatric diagnosis (e.g. developmental or perceptual disorders) including the examination of the reference system (family) and finally the specific interaction and attachment diagnosis through video-supported parent-child observations and so on.

therapy

In the treatment of excessive crying and other adjustment and developmental disorders in crying outpatient departments and day clinics, “the parent-child relationship is at the center of most intervention approaches”. For example, everyday situations such as playing, feeding, changing diapers are recorded, giving parents the opportunity to recognize the child's special skills and to develop ways of supporting them. Support of communication and the parent-child relationship. The aim is to strengthen the sensitivity , the intuitive skills and the mentalization ability of the parents.

In addition, the parents can "bring in topics that often do not seem to have 'directly' to do with the child's problem, and receive partner counseling or help with conflict management and resource mobilization", so that, for example, " the parents ' psychological stress is addressed [... ] which often have an unconscious and unintended effect in the child's experience ”. Sometimes the parents then recommend further therapeutic measures (psychotherapy, couple therapy or similar). Retrospectively, crying, feeding, sleeping disorders and so on can then be understood as a seismographic call for help in the reference system.

forecast

The early childhood regulatory and relationship disorders treated have a good prognosis. It turned out that "early unfavorable living conditions are less sure to lead to later personality impairments than psychoanalysis [...] suspects". Obviously, one can assume an “amazing recovery power”, “with the help of which the long-term effects of unfavorable early childhood experiences can be alleviated or even overcome”.

See also

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Carolin Keller, Gabriele Koch: “Schreiambulanzen” - early help in the first months and years of life. In: Familienhandbuch.de. State Institute for Early Childhood Education (IFP), 2014, accessed July 11, 2018 .
  2. ↑ Mauri Milena Fries: Our baby cries day and night: Help for exhausted parents . Reinhardt, 2006, ISBN 978-3-497-01849-9 .
  3. ↑ a b J. Bensel: Excessive crying in infants. Causes, consequences and treatment. In: Pediatric Practice . tape 69 . Hans Marseille Verlag, Munich 2006, p. 377-387 ( [1] [PDF]).
  4. ↑ Sabine Ulrich, zit.b. Scream clinics help parents and children out of the vicious circle: When babies scream for hours , moz.de , August 21, 2012
  5. ↑ On attachment theory, see John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth .
  6. ↑ See as an example for many the diagnostic scheme of the family day clinic in Münster, accessed on July 11, 2018 .
  7. ↑ Special outpatient clinic for parents with babies and toddlers. University of Heidelberg, accessed on October 28, 2016 .
  8. ↑ Martin Dornes: The competent infant . S. Fischer, 1993, ISBN 978-3-596-11263-0 .