Book Description
In Haunted Children Arthur F. Roemmelt, M.D., relates stories of his years as a child psychiatrist, sharing the experiences of children with a variety of psychiatric disorders and emphasizing the intensive and creative relationship necessary for the children to develop in a healthy fashion. The author discusses the movement of psychiatry away from psychotherapy toward strategic interventions and pharmacology and the consequences of this transformation. He argues that, although the latter treatment is seen as more efficient and available, it can also promote certain maladies such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and child abuse. Roemmelt concludes that what essentially is troubling many children is better confronted in therapy rather than treated with medications. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A BOOK OF SUBSTANCE WITH FASCINATING CASE STUDIES
Roemmelt presents some fascinating case studies of children whose lives were distorted by family and environment; children very difficult to reach, but for whom the force of a human relationship with Roemmelt was enough tokeep them from a life of medicated confusion and increasingfragmentation.

This book is a counter argument against the belief thatall neurotic behavior, or most, has a biological component that should bemanipulated medically to correct emotional problems and inner conflict.

In the spirit of Karen Horney and others, Roemmelt takes the positionthat neurosis is essentially a problem in human relationship-- that manydeep inner problems are rooted in conflicts arising from relationshipsbetween ideals ( the fact of what we are vs. what we 'ought to be'), self,and others.

Clearly some problems of neurosis and many of psychosis arebiologically oriented, and all ultimately have a biological representation -- yet it is not the position of this book that drugs should be describedas a first resort, but as a last resort.

The feeling of being trulyalive -- that comes from pain, persistence and the desire to overcome oneslimitations, as much as from any other set of feelings -- can be canceledout by the regulatory and often harmful side effects of medication. Manydoctors hand it out like candy. (Drs. can be as bad with medication as theycan be with therapy.)

This book is not about "touchy feely" asanother critic suggests, but a testimony to love in the spirit ofawareness; and also in the spirit of the warrior-- the fighters being thechildren who made it back to the other side.

Some people clearly needmedicine. Some really don't-- they need a shot at a real life. CouldRoemmelt really provide that chance for some of his Haunted Children--read the book and decide.

'If you don't feel it, you're not getting it. '

Keep on taking the pills ...
Yet another book deriding the new biologically-oriented psychiatry as dry and heartless.

Contains several case histories of classically autistic children who are deemed to be deeply emotionally disturbed (the fault oftheir parents, of course) and subjected to ludicrous psychoanalyticinterpretations. Where has Roemmelt been since the sixties? Has he not yetnoticed not only that autism has been conclusively demonstrated to beneurological in origin, but that a number of high-functioning people withautism (such as Temple Grandin and Gunilla Gerland) have backed this up andstarted describing their experiences, which, needless to say, bear noresemblance to Roemmelt's wild imaginings?

Any attempt to presentpsychoanalysis as the warm, humane, "touchy-feely" alternative tobiologically-oriented psychiatry is doomed if it displays this muchignorance and lack of interest in the actual minds and opinions of thepeople it purports to be studying.

One reason, after all, for the surgein biologically-oriented psychiatry in the last decade is the massivenumber of lives that were shattered by psychoanalytic dogmas (such as thegroundless claim that autism was an emotional disturbance caused byunloving parents). ... Read more