Environmental influences
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A mother’s touch: a key player in fine tuning the function of our genome
There is debate as to the importance of genetics in determining our behaviour. This debate has become enshrined perhaps due to the early focus of genetics on searching for DNA variation in our genome (termed a polymorphism) that affected protein structure, the hypothesis being that such a protein variant would not be working optimally in our body throughout our life.
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Children’s Understanding of Depression
Depression is a mental illness that affects children and especially adolescents, however little is known about how children and adolescents understand depression. Gaining an understanding of how children perceive illness can facilitate effective communication with health professionals and children’s active involvement in decision-making about their health.
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What is the effect of post-institutionalisation? A research digest
Research digest on DePasquale, Donzella and Gunnar’s (2018) study, which was published JCPP ‘Pubertal recalibration of cortisol reactivity following early life stress: a cross‐sectional analysis’.
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Back to school
“The government has recognised the need for greater focus on child and adolescent mental health and wellbeing, although is yet to provide adequate funding to match its rhetoric or a clear strategy for what in-school intervention would look like. Whilst early preventative programmes can be really useful for young people, I can’t help but think that the newly proposed in-school mental health initiatives might to some extent be treating problems created by the education culture that has been set up.”
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Genetic factors influence the relationship between the home environment and onset of depressive symptom
Clinical depression is prevalent in adolescence, but how depression emerges and the nature of the early risk factors is unknown. Insight has now come from a study performed by researchers at King’s College London.
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Understanding eating disorder susceptibility requires an integrated sociological, biological and genetic approach
In 2015, Kristen Culbert, Sarah Racine and Kelly Klump compiled a Research Review on the underlying causes of eating disorders for the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry.
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Expressed emotion varies with eating disorder diagnosis
Unique patterns of expressed emotion characterize communication within families with children affected by eating disorders, according to new research. Researchers across the USA recruited 215 adolescents (aged 12-19 years) with eating disorders and their families, and asked them to complete the Standardized Clinical Family Interview.
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The Olympics’ loss is psychology’s gain
Discover what was Professor Gordon Harold’s somewhat unlikely start in psychology.
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The family environment mediates risk of self-harming
Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) constitutes any deliberate physical injury to oneself that is not life-threatening. It is a behaviour that commonly starts during adolescence. Childhood family adversity (CFA) is associated with NSSI, but the risk pathways between CFA and NSSI are unclear.
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Self-Harm & Suicide Issue – Foreword from the Editor
As a clinician, it certainly does feel that more and more young people are being referred, following self harm or with suicidal ideas, to the CAMHS service I work in. This nationwide increase in numbers is acknowledged in recent government reports, which are summarised in this edition.
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