IMPROVEMENT NOTED IN A SEVENTH GRADE BOY WITH A FOUR-YEAR HISTORY OF KLEPTOMANIA FOLLOWING SYSTEMIC THERAPY FOCUSING ON HIS MOTHER

Abstract

In the clinical practice of child and adolescent psychiatry, cases in which the patient cannot or will not come to the clinic (refusal to leave home, parent(s) unwilling to subject the child to sessions, etc.) leaving just the parent(s) available to participate in therapy are not rare. I have met many such parents who were rejected by other medical institutions because they could only treat patients in attendance. While I understand the reasoning behind rejecting such patients who cannot come in for treatment, it has been my aim to assist in these situations as best I can. To that end, I studied the effectiveness of using the systems approach, considered a possible method to treat a patient without his/her attendance, as was the situation in the case described herein. The patient in question and his parents came to our clinic for assistance with what was described as four years of kleptomania. The family subsequently decided the patient would not attend sessions regularly, resulting in the patient coming in only twice. The first occasion was the initial and only visit with me, and the second was for a psychological examination with another therapist. Given the limitation of the patient being absent, psychotherapy centered around the patient's mother using the systems approach. As a result, the parents reported dissipation in the patient's symptoms as well as some improvement in their relationship with the boy. The possibilities of extending treatment to a patient in their absence—with only the parents present in sessions as in this case—may suggest efficacy of psychotherapy using the systems approach as a treatment option worth considering in the field of child and adolescent psychiatry.