We suppose that as these children age, as they grow into adults, they will be diagnosed as having Intermittent Explosive Disorder and treated with anger management. Why we couldn't have used Intermittent Explosive Disorder with qualifiers: refer to children with a 1, adults with a 2, and a 1,2, or 3 to indicate the severity, is a mystery. Perhaps the reason is that the temperament is chronic, not intermittent.
Here's the abstract. I'll get to the article this week, but want to offer up a few thoughts regardless. After all, they did ask me to be on the team to rewrite the DSM IV-TR. Is it my fault that the page froze after checking "other" when asked for "type of license"? I have two, and there was no way to communicate that. Calling in I was redirected, sent a new email. But the link to the application didn't work a second time.
And life gets in the way.
Look for the article in PsychInfo if you have an academic affiliation. It might be on sale somewhere online if you don't.
Emotional dysregulation in disruptive behavior disorders.
Cole, Pamela M.; Zahn-Waxler, Carolyn
Cicchetti, Dante (Ed); Toth, Sheree L. (Ed), (1992). Developmental perspectives on depression.Rochester symposium on developmental psychopathology, Vol. 4., (pp. 173-209). Rochester, NY, US: University of Rochester Press, xix, 396 pp.
(The authors) present a view of disruptive behavior disorders as affective disorders and, from that perspective, discuss the emotional characteristics which are associated with the development of aggressive, antisocial behavior
provide an overview of the disruptive behavior disorders, the history of the traditional segregation of behavior disorder from affective disorder, and the evidence and arguments for comorbidity of affective and disruptive disorders / consider possible developmental trajectories leading to these disorders / focus particularly on the role of emotion in early childhood and its implications for the development of deviant and aggressive behavior later in childhood and adolescence (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Seems to me we are looking for the prodromal, or warning signs of sociopathy, a disorder that defines what we have referred to as almost psychopathic in previous posts.
Parents are right to worry when their kids have symptoms of DMDD: uncontrollable tantrums, aggressiveness, an inability to manage emotion, an absence of empathy. When they are cruel. Dr. Cole has published on empathy in the past, and I think she is on the mark if she is thinking we have to teach children, all children, empathy.
We're talking about it right now because the DSM V is due out in 2013. Teams of researchers, revisionists, are making all kinds of changes to what we commonly call disorders. For example, Asperger's, childhood disorder in the current DSM IV-TR, has been known for decades to be characteristic of adults, too. It is thought to be a spectrum disorder, on the spectrum of autism, and may lose its status as a disorder exclusive to autism.
According to yesterday's Wall Street Journal (Shirley S. Wang), "Aspie's" are up in arms about being subsumed autistic. Not everyone likes the thought of being autistic, even if it is high functioning. Yet, most of the "Aspie's" I treat tell me that they are very much in their own world. They see the point. More likely however, Adult Asperger's Disorder will make it into the DSM V, at least that is my hope. Just a guess.
But back to our new flavor. When we first recognized Bipolar Disorder in children, it amounted to medication, usually too much. Manic kids were oppositional, hard to control by definition, and they suffered swings, clear signs of childhood depression. Thus meds saved the day, theoretically, although those of us who work with a family model are generally reluctant to make that referral.
Children with Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder are likely going to be over-medicated, too. It doesn't take much to over-medicate children. They are growing and changing all of the time. And they are mini-emotional time-bombs under normal circumstances. Having a motor that tends to puff and smoke at the worst possible times, it is understandable that parents are looking for help, lots of help, from that god of psychiatry, Big Pharma.
Thus we can only hope that parents remain patient, able to calm themselves, and bring little Joey to therapy. If you are such a parent, stay in the room and learn strategies from the doctor/therapist. The tried and true holding technique, grabbing the little tyke and holding her tightly (without hurting her) until she calms down, works for some kids, but as one reader puts it so well, restraining the child is:
a tried and true way to exert dominance, lose the child's trust, and create permanent emotional scars.
I think we had both lose the phrase, tried and true, unless we can qualify them well.
Make sure no one is hurt no matter what you do. Corporal punishment won't work, will work against you. And although we are capable of holding, able to restrain children, being three times their size, we have to be careful. Not every child responds well to that. If they are older, best to work on communicating in words, or in art, or play if holding is violently rejected.
There are other ways to treat DMDD. Engage other siblings, certainly a second parent if one is around, or grandparents, aunts and uncles. Use friends. Use your people. If you have none, find a support group. Call the National Alliance on Mental Illness, NAMI.
Lose the idea that this is something shameful. Get more into the idea that it takes a village to raise a child, because it does.
Behavioral modification won't always work, but try it early, start very, very young. Even a two-year old needs to know the power structure in the family, that he is not the boss of you. As a parent, you are the boss.
All of this assuming that marital dynamics lend themselves to the therapy, that the child isn't learning aggression in the home, a very big assumption. And that the dyad at the top, Mom and Dad, or Mom and Mom, or Dad and Dad, have to have something of a working relationship themselves, must communicate, agree on a treatment plan.
It is most likely that children who will be diagnosed with DMDD, unfortunately, are identified patients, that their families are the patient, really, and that only a fraction, a tiny fraction of the children diagnosed in nursery, kindergarten, or elementary school, whichever system has booted them out, have the disorder. If you hear the news: This child needs a psychiatric evaluation--it may not mean Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder, no matter who slaps on the label.
I'll put myself out there and suggest that as a first line of attack, families need to find a good family therapist, not a psychiatrist, and leave the primary care physician alone about medicating the child.
When it is obvious that a child is dangerous, on the other hand, a team approach is surely necessary, with a primary care doctor, a child psychiatrist (go find one, good luck), and a therapist. Sometimes even hospitalization might be necessary. Or so they're saying in the news today.
therapydoc
