Treatment outcome for children and adolescents with conversion disorder

Abstract

This paper describes the clinical impressions of conversion disorders developed after long term in-depth clinical work with 137 children and adolescents and their families. Almost half of the 89 patients who were directly treated and followed by the author through an integrative child and family therapy approach recovered less than two weeks after the initiation of the treatment. Only three out of 89 patients required longer than four weeks for recovery. The rest responded well to the therapy and recovered with two to four weeks of treatment. Factors associated with positive treatment outcome are: younger age of patient, healthy personality characteristics, lack of psychopathology, insight and treatment compliance, healthy family functioning, acceptance by the family of the psychological nature of the illness, positive feelings towards the child and the family by the staff, lack of internal conflict and inflexible neurotic defences, and early therapeutic interventions. It was found that child and adolescent patients with conversion disorders responded quite well to an integrative, condensed treatment approach.