Current issues in adolescent psychiatry

Adolescent psychiatry as a body of knowledge has shown encouraging growth in recent years, as research findings from general psychiatry have been added to new data on adolescent psychological and physical development. The author reviews recent findings on selected topics in adolescent psychopathology, including adaptive disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorders, phobias, attention deficit disorders, depression, manic-depressive illness, suicidal impulses, schizophrenia, anorexia nervosa, and borderline states. He also outlines findings on normal adolescent development and discusses the problems of diagnosing children and adolescents with psychological problems. Studies in anxiety, attention deficit, and conduct disorders, he says, are yielding important new findings by combining biological and psychological insights.