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The Teasing Syndrome in Facially Deformed Children
Author(s) -
Gerrard Jeffrey M.
Publication year - 1991
Publication title -
australian and new zealand journal of family therapy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.297
H-Index - 19
eISSN - 1467-8438
pISSN - 0814-723X
DOI - 10.1002/j.1467-8438.1991.tb00863.x
Subject(s) - psychology , developmental psychology , clinical psychology
Teasing is a common occurrence in children and teenagers attending the Australian Cranio‐Facial Clinic (maybe as high as 40%). A pilot project was developed to obtain more information about teasing and its effect on children attending the Cranio‐Facial Clinic. From this work an hypothesis was developed about the dynamics of teasing at school and the consequences for the children in the form of sequential symptom development, which can evolve into a teasing syndrome. The syndrome begins with the child being upset, angry and miserable and evolves through social withdrawal, emergence of various psychosomatic symptoms and then proceeds to school failure and eventually to school refusal. At this point the child presents a clinical picture of being depressed and maybe suicidal. An innovative treatment method was used to teach the children to make an imaginary forcefield which they could use to beat teasing and this was evaluated using a single case design method. Further studies need to be done to ascertain the epidemiology of teasing in normal and handicapped children in schools and to further elucidate aspects of “The Teasing Syndrome”.