[Adulthood -- childhood -- adulthood: long-term therapy in child and adolescent psychiatry]

The aggregation of psychiatric disorders within families is well-known. The relative role of biological, psychogenic and socialization-related factors varies with the individual case. Another well-known fact is that parents play a very important role in influencing whether their child gets the right treatment when it is necessary. In this paper we highlight the complex links between childhood and adulthood through the presentation of three psychiatric cases. The first story starts with a lactation psychosis of a mother and ends when the daughter who became psychotic at the age of 15 enters adulthood. During these 18 years several psychiatrically relevant episodes happened in the family. During our care, step by step, in relation to emerging psychological problems, the family revealed more and more secrets, explaining past events, and offering a possibility for psychoeducation and psychotherapy. Knowledge concerning the life and psychiatric history of parents, in spite of the fears of the family, largely contributed to evaluating the symptoms of the daughter, reaching a diagnosis, initiating and maintaining therapy and achieving the present balanced state. The next two cases present the stories of two boys with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). One of the children was 6 years old when the family sought professional help, and now he is 11, the other child was 8 years old when the parents sought help and he is 15 now. The two families reacted differently to the offered treatment, but in both cases the family stayed continuously in touch with their child psychiatrists. With these two different stories on ADHD we would like to present several issues and successes which may surface during the long-term treatment of ADHD.