Abnormal Child Psychology

Abstract

The development of abnormal child psychology as a unique area of study has not been without growing pains. The developmental pathway was riddled with roadblocks that delayed recognition of abnormal child psychology, or clinical child psychology, as a unique field of study. The terms abnormal child psychology, clinical child psychology and child psychopathology can be used interchangeably, as is evident in the wide variety of journal titles available. The rise of the somatogenic perspective or the disease model of mental illness brought with it the hope of a 'cure', but it also ushered in stigma and fear of potentially 'catching' or inheriting the illness. Child psychopathology was not conceptualized as a unique discipline until the 1970s due to four important obstacles: the nature/nurture debate, the introduction of the disease model of pathology, the shift in emphasis from treatment to identification and the conceptualization of child problems as similar to adult problems.

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