Abstract
The case histories of ten nonpsychotic patients (nine female and one male) who had experienced hallucinations are summarized. Significant anxiety and depression were found in the majority of the patients, five of whom expressed suicidal ideas. Stress factors were primarily family and school. Eight children had combined auditory and visual hallucinations, which involved dead relatives in five cases. The aims or purposes of the hallucinations were multiple, but escape mechanisms were most common. A profile of the nonpsychotic patient most likely to experience hallucinations would be a socially immature teenage girl who is experiencing depression and anxiety due to stress within the family.
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Received his M.D. degree from Georgetown University in 1959. He received his residency training at Lafayette Clinic, Detroit, Michigan, and was for one year the Assistant Director of the Louisville Child Guidance Clinic. His special interest is child and adolescent psychiatry. He has been involved in directing and supervising Child Psychiatry liaison with Department of Child Health (Pediatrics) and has provided a consultation program for the Columbia Public Schools. His present research activities include the psychiatric assessment of diabetic children in relationship to the level of diabetic control and objective analyses of the mental status of children admitted to a psychiatric inpatient service.
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Simonds, J.F. Hallucinations in nonpsychotic children and adolescents. J Youth Adolescence 4, 171–182 (1975). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01537440
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01537440