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serious mental disorder, but seemed to respond to a minimum of
treatment with a complete remission or cure.
Our evening clinic continues to provide its usefulness by
facilitating the attendance of adolescents and working parents, especially
fathers. While this weekly session had been always fully booked,
we are less happy that in spite of repeated efforts by the Child
Guidance Team, some twenty cases that had been referred by head
teachers or school medical officers during the year, either failed to
attend after having accepted appointments, or did not respond at all
In many cases the parents had agreed initially to the referral but
had apparently no intention of following this up. As we have a
timetable of appointments which must allow up to one hour for every
interview, such failure to attend without fair notice is most uneconomical
and unfair to others on our long waiting list. Even more time
consuming were a number of parents who having accepted appointments
failed to keep them and then required appointments at another time.
The building of the new Neurophysiology Department at the
Whittington Hospital has enabled us to obtain Electro-Encephalograms
locally when required, but we remain appreciative to Dr. Sakula who
until recently provided this service at the Central Middlesex Hospital.
We are particularly pleased with the excellent co-operation we enjoy
from Dr. Yudkin and the Paediatric Department at the Whittington
Hospital. It is very important that the Child Guidance Clinic cooperates
with the local children's hospital to ensure consultation and
investigation of doubtful cases, and bladder and bowel disturbance can
be observed in hospital to exclude organic factors before psychotherapy
is commenced. A Turkish Cypriot boy, referred for most aggressive
behaviour in school, turned out to be a most complex case of brain
damage, and he required five different specialist examinations to enable
an adequate diagnosis. The most interesting and unusual referral of
two autistic brothers aroused widespread interest and they had the
benefit of the advice from specialists in three different hospitals
before appropriate treatment was arranged by this clinic.
A very happy and promising development was the monthly
attendance at the Child Guidance Clinic of school medical officers.
They joined individually the psychiatrist in his diagnostic session and
took part in the Case Conference. They have expressed their
appreciation of the value of this contact, and we in turn learned
much from their presence.
Child Guidance reaches out from the profession to the community,
particularly to teachers and parents. Explanations of the purpose and
function of the service to laymen or colleagues in related disciplines,
forms part of our work. During the year the educational psychologist
has given talks to groups of young wives, to two training
colleges for teachers, and to medical officers attending a course for
D. P. H. The child psychiatrist conducted courses under the auspices
of the Extra-Mural Department of the London University which were
attended by many trainees and active workers in the field of Mental
Health, and he read during the summer papers relating to his speciality
at International Medical Congresses in Rome and Paris.
The internal reconstruction of the Child Guidance Centre at
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