A Survey of American and Canadian Psychiatry Residents on Their Training, Teaching Practices, and Attitudes Toward Teaching.

OBJECTIVE: Formal training for residents-as-teachers in psychiatry is increasingly emphasized. However, little is known about the quantity and content of residents' teaching, their attitudes toward teaching, or the training received on how to teach. METHODS: An online survey was disseminated to American and Canadian psychiatry residents. RESULTS: Three hundred eighty-two residents from all postgraduate years (PGY) responded, representing about 7 % of all trainees. About half of PGY-1 have not received residents-as-teachers training, but by PGY-3 most have. The majority of respondents reported teaching, most commonly 1-5 h. Most found teaching enjoyable or rewarding (n = 304; 87 %); however, 40 % (n = 138) found teaching burdensome, 43 % (n = 151) lacked sufficient time to teach, and many (n = 226; 64 %) reported insufficient feedback from supervisors. CONCLUSIONS: Although the sampling methodology and low response rate limit the generalizability of findings, respondents typically seemed to value teaching, though the majority felt that they lacked feedback on their teaching skills.

Coming Together to Move Apart: Family Therapy for Enhancing Adolescent Development.

An important goal of adolescent development is emotional separation from the family of origin. Differing views on how to accomplish this task exist, and these are reflected in the choice of treatment modality. It has been common practice in the treatment of adolescents for work with parents to be done separately from the adolescent. Since social, cultural, and economic factors have an impact on development, as society changes it is important to think creatively about effective ways to accomplish the process of becoming a functioning adult. It is in this context that authors have focused recently on the need for young adults to have a positive connection with their parents. This paper will address the role of involvement of family in the psychotherapy of adolescents either by inviting them to participate in some of the individual sessions or through conjoint family therapy to facilitate forward development. Clinical illustrations will demonstrate the issues of an adolescent with unresolved early traumatic separation, an adolescent who is fulfilling parental needs, an adolescent with too much power in the family, the importance of beginning treatment after assessing where everyone is emotionally, and the problem of premature disconnection by parents.

The well sibling: challenges and possibilities.

The impact on the family of a child with serious mental illness or some other form of disability has been well documented by many authors. Contributing to this impact is society's attitude to mental disabilities, which has been ambivalent and marginalizing at best and shunning at worst. Because of this, individuals and families dealing with mental disabilities tend to become isolated. Further, onset of mental illness often causes disruption of the family's life cycle and profoundly affects the sibling relationship. This paper will consider the nature of the impact of the ill child on the siblings and propose some ways to address and manage the powerful reactions of well siblings in fostering a more satisfying individual and family adjustment and in preventing problems for the well sibling and future generations.