Mastodon
Center for Psychosocial… Department of Child and… About us

About us

Mission statement

Under the direction of Prof. Dr. med. univ. Franz Resch (since 1993), the development of the department has been characterized by the systematic expansion and development of care modules into a modern integrative child and adolescent psychiatry, which has taken over the care obligation for the city of Heidelberg and large parts of the Rhine-Neckar district.

The road to adulthood presents children and young people with many challenging tasks. It is all the more difficult for those affected if they also have to deal with psychological problems or suffer from psychiatric illness. On the one hand, temporary specific disturbances and risk behaviors may appear  during pubertal development, such as abnormalities in social behavior or emotional disorders. On the other hand, the first signs of a severe mental illness may also occur, which must be treated for a longer period of time, such as psychotic disorders or eating disorders.

The Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry has set itself the task of finding out how the patient can best be helped holistically: For this reason, depending on the illness and individual problem situation, a wide range of therapeutic offers including family interventions are provided in the medical field, but also in the area of daytime structure and leisure time, whereby special importance is attached to the mutual cooperation. In addition to a wide range of activities in the field of patient care and research, the clinic is intensively dedicated to the challenges of modern teaching and training.

Patient Care

The Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry offers psychotherapeutic-psychiatric treatment with outpatient, day-care and inpatient care structures. The range of services is characterized by the integration of a wide variety of diagnostic, therapeutic and educational procedures, which are individually tailored to the needs of the patient.

Treatment focuses on individual and group therapy based on developemental psychology, behavioral therapy and psycho-dynamics, integrating systemic view points. In addition curative and experiential education, music and occupational therapy, curative dance and intensive work with relatives are provided. A further element of treatment for school-age children and adolescents is attendance at the clinic school.

In addition to psychotherapy for children and adolescents, the clinic offers acute psychiatric-psychotherapeutic assistance in crises, psychotic illnesses and borderline conditions as well as severe eating disorders, tendencies to self-injury and suicidal behavior in adolescence.

Research

The scientific profile focuses on developmental psychopathology, which combines neurobiological fundamentals with developmental psychological and social scientific findings. The focus is on "Personality Development", "Adolescent Risk Behavior and Self-Harm", "Schizophrenia in Adolescence", "Prevention, Health Promotion and Quality Assurance, "Prevention of Bullying in school, kindergarten and day care" and "Early Childhood, Temperament, Early life stress".

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