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This study investigating the effects of verbal abuse on children and their abused parents, tends to support the clinical impression that verbal abuse may have a greater impact for a longer period of time. Although there are very few pure forms of verbal abuse, there are some parents who use verbal abuse but would hit their children, neglect them, or involve them in sex. Verbal abuse may become an increasingly frequent form of controlling and disciplining children because of the increased awareness of physical abuse and because of the possible declining value of children. Verbal abuse may have a greater impact because the abused child has greater difficulty defending himself from the attack. Because children tend to identify with their parents, the verbal abuse by their parents becomes a way in which they then abuse themselves.

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The presence of depression in school-age children may not be adequately recognized by teachers. Teachers may be misdiagnosing depressed children as having a specific learning problem. The incidence of depression in 282 children admitted to a child and family psychiatric unit for a variety of emotional/behavioral disorders was investigated. While depression was seen as a major factor in the poor learning of the identified depressed children, very few of these children were seen as having specific learning disabilities, even though some of them previously had been diagnosed as learning disabled. Recognition and appropriate treatment of childhood depression by involved professionals is important.

Our study of pre-medical and medical students attending the Universities of British Columbia, Hong Kong and Otago, together with house surgeons, general practitioners, surgeons and psychiatrists in New Zealand, demonstrated many agreements regarding both positive and negative factors affecting their interest in psychiatry. Positive factors included: interest in human behaviour, personal aptitude, and quality of patient care. Negative factors included: the stress of practising psychiatry, faculty attitude and the quality of the science. Differences were determined by age of the students and cultural and personal experiences. We concluded that if more students are to be interested in psychiatry then psychiatrists will need to show that they enjoy their work and give effective treatment.

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