Monday 24th Jan between 1 - 2 pm - Live webchat with Dr Sally Hodges, Consultant Clinical Psychologist at Tavistock Centre

[RachelMumsnet]

Dr Sally Hodges will be joining us for a webchat on Monday 24th January between 1 and 2 pm. Sally is a Consultant Clinical Psychologist at The Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust specialising in child disabilities. The Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust is a leading mental health trust which delivers high quality mental health care, education, research and consultancy work. The Trust delivers out-patient mental health care to children, adolescents, adults and families, with a particular focus on specialist talking therapies and a developmental approach to the promotion of mental wellbeing and the prevention and treatment of mental ill health.

Sally lead on a brand new project to develop an interactive emotional wellbeing website for children aged 7-10 years in Camden, north London. Cam's Den's aims are to help overcome mental health stigma, address an existing gap in mental health education for young children and explain what actually happens in a therapy session.

Sally is happy to answer your questions on topics covering child and adolescent mental health and why a resource for children like camsden.co.uk is so important. Join us next Monday (24th) between 1 and 2 or send a question to Sally in advance to this thread.

Have an 18 year old DS with drug and alcohol addiction issues who I strongly suspect has AS. Hasn't been willing to seek in the past although I suspect that it is getting to the point where one way or the other he will have some help. I saw an AS specialist myself who felt that, given the addiction issues, we needed someone with specific experience of AS/addiction combined. Any thoughts on how we could get him the help that he needs would be much appreciated.

Testing

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1,2,3

Hi all, Sally's here and just getting settled.

Thanks very much to her for coming on Mumsnet and thanks to everyone who has posted questions.

Sally will be starting in a minute.

Hi Dr Sally. Just wondering about passing 'depressive dispositions' through the generations... My dh has suffered with depression from adolescence to date and only a few years back he had a crisis where we got help, different meds and CBT that has worked wonders (why does mental health support have to reach crisis point to get help? - that's another webchat I think!!). He is insightful now and manages his moods well (they said that he has 'unstable mood disorder).

Anyway, his father is like this so I am fearful that he may pass this tendency to our ds (only 2 now)... Is this a common occurrence or in my dh's case, co-incidental? If common, what can we do as a family to watch out for it and lessen the impact as ds gets older?

Hope this makes sense, thanks.

Walking

Hi
My 13 year old son is Visually impaired and has aspergers. Over the last year he has become increasingly angry at school. He attends a specialist residential school.alot of his problems seem to stem from peer relationships I feel he needs more intense parenting. what would you suggest. He is intolerant to critism and enjoys praise

Is depression in a teen with autism inevitable? Are treatments successful? How do you protect a child's self esteem when they become aware of the disability?

Hello.

Hello all, I am really pleased to be here, and will do my best to get through as many questions as I can.

Just looking through the questions its seems like anxiety, anger and depression are key issues in people with ASD diagnoses, and this is something we find at the tavistock too.

One issue we have found is that families experience services as putting everything down to a diagnosis rather than thinking about the whole story, it sounds like some of this has been happening to some of you too.

Hi :)
DD is 17, she has been diagnosed with a whole host of anxiety related disorders and AVPD.
She's attended CBT since she was 16, but currently she's at an inbetween stage. She's now too old for CAMHS but not old enough for the adult MH services - what on earth can I do to help her?
Are there any books you can recommend for either me or her, or just any advice would be welcome.
Thank you!

hello to you Sally,
Please help my son, no one acknowledges his issues and he is being left by the wayside.

Hi Sally.
I have a lovely 11 year old boy who's very bright. He struggles socially and he often says that he doesn't understand who others are so horrible to each other/him. He's struggling to make friends at his new secondary school because he can see how immature his year are and he doesn't want to be around them. He's constantly telling me that he's unhappy and I don't really know how to support him. He does activities outside school and has a few friends there but it doesn't appear to help.

Thak you

ALso concerned about any hereditary nature of bi-polar. My 9 1/2 year old is very influential/aware of what others think of her. Also very anxious - dislikes going to toilet/getting into bed on own etc. A potential move from the area and worries about making new friends etc has sparked off rather tense, "mad" behaviour. Constant yabbering, hysterical, forced laughter at own jokes. What is normal behaviour? Can sending a child to psychiatrist if not needed actually trigger an illness?

Hi Sally

My daughter is in year 7 at school she has a non verbal learning difficulty (assessed as significant 0.1 on her scores wisc tests), selective mustism and since a extended virus some weeks ago has developed pains in her arms, legs, hands and joints in general.

She goes to a small, friendly secondary school which she wanted to go to at first but now it seems that we are getting into the old "I don't want to go" cycle that we have been on for two extended periods twice before.

Everyday she has a headache, feels sick or can't walk. I sometimes have to shove her out the door ( she has home school transport). It is very draining just to get her off to school and she has 3 brothers one who has ASD as well who see this daily. Then she comes home upset saying its all my fault if she has had a bad day.

Can you advise?

Thanks.

hello
my friends DD is 5yo and pulls her hair out, she has been referred but is there anything my friend can do to help her daughter in the meantime

thank you

@asdx2

Is depression in a teen with autism inevitable? Are treatments successful? How do you protect a child's self esteem when they become aware of the disability?

Its not inevitable, but statistically is it more likely. Treatments can be sucessful, but they do need to take into account the contributing factors in the development of depression, sometimes its to do with the wider system issues, like difficulty in relationships, across all areas in school, or home, and shouldnt be viewed as a purely 'biological' and therefore inevitable problem.

I agree that self esteem issues can be a problem, but talking about and reflecting on these can help.

@aristocat

hello
my friends DD is 5yo and pulls her hair out, she has been referred but is there anything my friend can do to help her daughter in the meantime

thank you

Im glad that she is getting help for this. Sometimes its hard not to focus on the problem and comment about it, but sometimes taking the emphasis off the actual problem can help, so for example if your friend is able to reward her daughter for periods of time when this doesnt happen it might help.

thank you - friend is so worried as the hair loss is clearly visible

@MmeLindt

Several members of my husband's family suffer from mental health issues. One sister is bipolar, the other sister has suffered from depression and a niece has recently been admitted to hospital suffering from a breakdown. A cousin attempted suicide some years ago, after battling depression.

The family are rather secretive, and not good at discussing their feelings. We have only recently learned about the niece, but have no details. It happened several weeks ago.

My husband worries about our children, particularly our daughter - whether the likelihood of her developing some MH issues is higher, because of the family history.

What can we do to help our daughter avoid this?

The fact that you are doing things differently for your immediate family is really important; you are able to think about and talk about these issues which will make a difference.

How mental health difficulties develop is very complex and in most cases not purely down to a biological basis, that is the environment has a real and powerful influence on mental health.

talking about concerns and providing a thinking space to deal with issues for your children will help them deal with adversity, and will really reduce the likelyhood of more serious difficulties.