Child & Adolescent Related Content

When he was still a graduate student in the 1970s, Michael Hollander’s first patient was an adolescent who was in a great deal of emotional pain. “She was suicidal, self-injurious, and probably would have been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder had we been able to do that in those days...

Renowned physician-scientist Daniel P. Dickstein, MD, FAAP, has come to McLean Hospital to further his groundbreaking research on the biology of childhood psychiatric disorders—and to help improve mental health care for children, teens, and young adults. Dickstein is uniquely trained and board...

Christian A. Webb, PhD, received the 2021 Anne Marie Albano Early Career Award for Excellence in the Integration of Science and Practice from the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies (ABCT). Webb, who is the director of McLean’s Treatment and Etiology of Depression in Youth (TEDY)...

Some days, Patrick Lovelace couldn’t make it until 3pm at his large public high school, and he’d call his mother to pick him up early. Other days, he refused to go altogether. His anxiety was crippling; healthy relationships were hard to nurture. So, when his family proposed that he check out McLean...

Schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, and bipolar disorder with psychotic features are diagnoses laden with stigma, and they can sound downright frightening. Child psychiatrist Perihan Esra Guvenek-Cokol, MD, an expert in psychotic disorders, doesn’t dispute their seriousness. But she knows that...

McLean Hospital recently began relocating several of its youth programs. These moves are designed to help expand much-needed access to mental health services and enhance collaboration among our clinicians. According to Michael Macht-Greenberg, PhD, MPH, senior director of the Simches Division of...

Sarah was diagnosed with a confusing series of psychiatric disorders after showing symptoms as early as second grade. At 14, she spent four months rarely getting out of bed. Desperate for help, her parents found McLean’s Adolescent Acute Residential Treatment (ART) Program. Its short-term, intensive...

Maria Fraire, PhD, has known she wanted to be a therapist since she was eight years old. “People told me, ‘Oh, you’ll change,’ but honestly, I’m a bit tenacious,” said the incoming program director of McLean’s Child and Adolescent OCD Institute (OCDI Jr.). Fraire has been particularly interested in...

Today, students and their parents expect to have the latest technology,” said Suzanne Loughlin, APRN, BC, director of McLean Hospital’s Arlington School. “And in the past year, we’ve taken additional steps to bring the 21st-century classroom experience to the Arlington School.” With the help of a...

Shyanne had more or less stopped talking—a disorder called selective mutism. She was depressed and anxious, had stopped going to school, and couldn’t stand to be touched. Her grandmother was doing her best to homeschool her but admits the 12-year-old was learning very little. Then someone told her...

Yoga has become ubiquitous. In fact, it is difficult to find a community that doesn’t offer classes ranging from “flow” and “hot” yoga to those with nearly unpronounceable names. Tracing roots back more than 5,000 years, yoga is an array of techniques or practices aimed at integrating mind, body...

The increase in anxiety in today’s students takes a toll not only on the youngsters, but also on the education professionals who work to help them through their days. A collaboration between the Falmouth, Massachusetts, public school system and the McLean Anxiety Mastery Program is paying dividends...

Growing up has never been easy. Multiply the normal angst of the teenage years by the deluge of smartphones, texts, tweets, Instagram photos, and Snapchat snaps. Then add the realities of post-9/11 societal stress, poverty, homelessness, anxiety, depression, and substance misuse, and you have a new...

They are teens, preteens, and even elementary school students who avoid school and rack up absences. They grapple with severe depression, anxiety, and eating disorders, and sometimes it gets so bad they need to be hospitalized. “I’ve been doing this a long time, and the number of kids who are...

College is challenging for everyone, but for students affected by mental illness, the adversity they face can be overwhelming. McLean Hospital is working to address the unique needs of college students with psychiatric disorders through its world-renowned College Mental Health Program (CMHP)...