The Palgrave Handbook of Child Mental Health

This Handbook illustrates the importance of examining child mental health from a different perspective, one that assumes that psychiatric categories are made real in and through both written and spoken language. It gathers a range of applied and theoretical analyses from leading scholars and clinicians in order to examine the conversational practices of children diagnosed with mental health disorders alongside those of their parents, families and practitioners. The contributors move away from viewing mental illness as an objective truth; instead reintroducing the relevance of language in constructing and deconstructing the assumptions that surround the diagnosis and treatment of childhood mental health disorders. Including chapters on ADHD, autism, depression, eating disorders and trauma, this collection addresses the diversity involved in discussing child mental health.

Divided into six parts: the place of conversation/discourse analysis; critical approaches; social constructions of normal/abnormal; situating and exploring the difficulties involved; managing problem behaviour and discussing different practices involved; this Handbook presents a comprehensive overview of child mental health. It is an essential reference resource for all those involved or interested in child mental health.

Dr Michelle O'Reilly is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Leicester, Greenwood Institute of Child Health. She specialises in discourse and conversation analysis of child mental health interactions. Michelle has a particular interest in childhood autism and has published books and papers in both mental health and autism.

Dr Jessica Nina Lester is an Assistant Professor at Indiana University, Bloomington. She teaches research methods courses, including discourse analysis. Her research is focused on the study and development of qualitative methodologies, with much of her work positioned at the intersection of discourse studies and disability studies.

Preface

PART I: THE PLACE OF CONVERSATION/DISCOURSE ANALYSIS IN CHILD MENTAL HEALTH

1. The Value of Conversation Analysis for Child Mental Health; Alessandra Fasulo

2. The Value of Conversation Analysis: A Child Psychiatrist's Perspective; Khalid Karim

3. The Value of Discourse Analysis: A Clinical Psychologist's View; Nikki Kiyimba

4. Looking or Spotting? A Conversation Analytic Perspective on Interaction Between a Humanoid Robot, a Co-Present Adult and a Child with an ASD; Paul Dickerson and Ben Robins

5. ADHD: The Discursive Implications; Adam Rafalovich

PART II: A CRITICAL APPROACH TO CHILD MENTAL HEALTH

6. Discourses on Children's Mental Health: A Critical Review; Tom Strong and Monica Sesma-Vazquez

7. Child Mental Health: A Discourse Community; Stephen Gilson and Liz DePoy

8. The Social Construction of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD); Sami Timimi and Lewis Timimi

9. Moral Evaluations in Repertoires of ADHD; Mary Horton-Salway and Alison Davies

10. Leaving Melancholia: Disruptive Mood Dsyregulation Disorder; Valerie Harwood

11. Why Does a Systemic Psychotherapy 'Work'?; Sim Roy-Chowdhury

PART III: THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF NORMAL/ABNORMAL

12. Red Flags: The Social Construction of a Sympton; David Giles

13. The Production of the 'Normal Child': Exploring Co-Constructions of Parents, Children and Therapists; Charlotte Brownlow and Andrea Lamont-Mills

14. Should Autism be Classified as a Mental Illness/Disability? Evidence from Empirical Work; Michelle O'Reilly, Khalid Karim and Jessica Lester

15. Subjectivity in Autistic Language: A Reapprasial of Pronoun Avoidance and Reversal; Laura Sterponi, Kenton de Kirby and Jennifer Shankey

16. Normative Development and the Autistic Child; Lindsay O'Dell and Charlotte Brownlow

PART IV: SITUATING AND EXPLORING CHILD MENTAL HEALTH DIFFICULTIES

17. A Conversation Analysis of the Problem Presentation Phase of Initial Assessment Appointments in a Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service; Victoria Stafford and Khalid Karim

18. The Discursive Construction of Problem Behaviours of Children with Autism in Therapy; Jessica Lester and Michelle O'Reilly

19. Name-Calling by a Child with Asperger's Syndrome; Johanna Rendle-Short, Susan Danby and Ray Wilkinson

20. Attachment Processes and Eating Disorders in Families: Research and Clinical Implications; Rudi Dallos and Sarah Pitt

21. Using Discourse Analysis to Study Online Forums for Yound People who Self-Harm; Janet Smithson

22. Using Conversation Analysis for Understanding Children's Talk about Traumatic Events; Amanda Bateman, Susan Danby and Justine Howard

23. Food, Eating and 'Eating Disorders': Analysing Adolescents' Discourse; Maxine Woolhouse and Katy Day

PART V: MANAGING PROBLEM BEHAVIOUR

24. Nonverbal Communication as Interactional Resources for Children with Autism: A Discourse Analysis of the Rhetoric of Communication Privilege; Jessica Lester

25. Parents' Resources for Facilitating the Activities of Children with Autism at Home; Monica Ramey and John Rae

26. Managing and Normalising Emotions and Behaviour: A Conversation Analytic Study of ADHD Coaching; Louise Bradley and Carly Butler

27. How Expectation to Speak Influences an Interaction Involving a Child with Selective Mutism: A Conversation Analysis Case Study; Hanna Schäfer and Tom Muskett

28. "I'm Happy with Who I Am": A Discursice Analysis of the Self-Characterisation Practices of Boys in "Behaviour" Schools; Linda J. Graham

PART VI: CHILD MENTAL HEALTH PRACTICE

29. Therapeutic Vision: Eliciting Talk about Feelings in Child Counselling for Family Separation; Ian Hutchbuy

30. Parents' Negative Positioning of Children in Family Therapy: A Discursive Argument for Purposeful Inclusion and Exclusion of children; Nikki Kiyimba and Michelle O'Reilly

31. Parentification: client and Counsellor Talk on a Helpline for Children and Young People; Susan Danby, Jakob Cromdal, Johanna Rendle-Short, Carly W. Butler, Karin Osvaldsson and Michael Emmison

32. "And You? What Do You Think Then?" Taking Care of Thought and Reasoning in Intellectual Disability; Marilena Fatigante, Saverio Bafaro and Margherita Orsolini

33. "You Just Have to be Cheerful Really": Children's Accounts of Ordinariness in Trauma Recovery Talk