[Theoretical bases of semiology in pediatric psychiatry. I. Theoretical models]

This paper is the first part of a study on the theoretic concepts used in child psychiatry and their functioning during the first consultations with a child and his family. These models have different origins (medicine, psychology, education) and contribute to the true specificity of child psychiatry, which must take into account both the developmental aspect as in pediatrics, and the peculiarity of the human psyche. This gives a special stamp to child psychopathology and some usual ways of thinking (like normality, comparability) are quickly inoperative. The five main theoretic models available in child psychiatry are recalled: the model of the medical semiology which describes symptoms and gives them value, the clinical-anatomical model which tries to set up relationships between structure and function, the developmental and cognitive model which emphasizes the psychomotor and intellectual abilities of the child, the affective model (psychoanalysis and attachment) which studies his/her emotional development, and the environmental model which set the child in his/her conditions of growth. These models only support the thoughts of the consultant who must keep in mind the psychic development as a whole and try to aggregate all his findings in the various fields to extract the main features underlying the child's difficulties.