"Take Charge of the Care of Your Child"

Mental Health Associations, Government Agencies

Books and Web Links

                        The following resources are of varying degrees of assistance.  This site highly recommends the Cytryn/McKnew and  Fassler Dumas  books for information on child depression.     The Jamison and  Shamoo/Patros  are excellent, but very different, resources for depression as it relates to suicide.  As to websites, the materials from the  National Institutes of Mental Health are the most basic and useful.  A new site by the American Psychiatric  Association and the American Academy  of Child and  Adolescent Psychiatry helps parents concerned about use of medications with  their depressed children.  It is at http://www.parentsmedguide.org/parentsmedguide.htm .   You can spend hours on line with the National Medical Library catalog, but it  is difficult to identify useful materials, many of which are abstracts.   We recently discovered an informative, if jargon-filled, article in The American  Family Physician which is directed to pediatricians.  You may find it  helpful in making your pediatrician pay real attention to concerns for your  child's mental health.  It is the article by Son and Kirchner, which we  have linked to the AFP website below.

                        If you find  a useful publication or website, don’t keep it to yourself. Send it to webmaster@depressedchild.org  so  we can add it to our list.

                        Important note about links:  This site is frequently asked to list a URL link to another website which the  other site always claims would be helpful to you.  The pitch is that if  The Depressed Child lists their site, then they will list ours.  Sometimes  these sites soliciting listing seem worthwhile and The Depressed Child will  list those sites happily.  Usually, though, the pitch comes from a  for-profit site (which by itself isn't either good or bad) with irrelevant  information, useless information or totally untested “cures” for  depression.  We never list such sites, regardless of what the site is  offering to us.  The reason for this kind of exchange is to get a higher  ranking on Google and other search engines, which use as a criterion for ranking in a search how often a site is linked on other sites.  This, of course, puts  a premium on listing, not on content.  This is also a reason why The  Depressed Child often ranks so low on your searches, depending on your search  words.  We probably could get a little higher ranking if we played this game, but we ask:  What is the point of a high Google ranking if the  content is junk? 

                        If you, a parent or friend of a depressed child, find a  helpful site,  please e-mail it to us with a sentence  or two about why you found it helpful.  YOUR  recommendation is the one that counts.     

Mental Health  Screening

                 The National Mental Health Association has a depression screening test at http://www.depression-screening.org  which  might give you a clue if your child is possibly depressed.  It is not  sufficient to diagnose depression, but may indicate if you should  seek professional help soon.   According to The Washington Post,  the Center for Mental Health Services Knowledge Exchange Network (800-789-2647  or www.mentalhealth.org  is a  government-supported service offering confidential referrals to nearby public  health facilities.    The National Mental Health Association  (703-684-7722 or 800-969-6642 or http://www.nmha.org  also provides information and referral.  The National  Hopeline   Network (800-784-2433) automatically connects callers to certified counselors  at nearby crisis centers 24 hours a day, according to The Post.    We can't vouch for these places and would appreciate  feedback from anyone who uses them -- how much does the screening cost, does it  seem reliable and useful, etc.

Mental Health  Associations

American Association of  Suicidology  

American Foundation for Suicide Prevention

American Psychiatric Association

American Psychiatric Association/American Academy  of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry   

The Center for Mental Health Services

Child and Adolescent Bipolar Foundation  

National Alliance for the Mentally Ill 

National  Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression 

Mental Health America

Surgeon General of theUnited States

National Institutes of Mental Health (NIMH),  National Institutes of Health (NIH)

NIMH Home Page

NIMH Treatment of Children with Mental Illness

NIMH Suicide Fact Sheet 

NIMH Depression Research Fact Sheet

NIMH Detailed booklet on Depression 

 NIMH:  Antidepressant Medications for Children and Adolescents: Information for Parents and Caregivers 

Surgeon  General.  Mental  Health :Depression and Suicide in Children  and Adolescents                 

NIMH:  Report of the Surgeon General’s Conference on  Children’s Mental Health    

NIMH pamphlet and short video,  “Depression”  

NIMH:    Depression In   Children and Adolescents  

National Medical Library, National Institutes of Health 

Books

                        American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of  Mental  Disorders (Fourth Edition) (“DSM-IV”). APA, Washington, D.C. 

                        Cytryn, Leon, M.D. and McKnew , Donald, M.D., Growing Up Sad: Childhood Depression and Its Treatment.   W.W. Norton & Co., Inc. N.Y.,  N.Y., 1996. 

                      DePaulo , Dr. J. Raymond Jr. and Horvitz, Leslie  Alan.  Understanding Depression.  John Wiley & Sons.   2002.

                      Empfield, Maureen, M.D. and  Bakalar , Nicholas.  Understanding Teenage Depression:  A Guide to  Diagnosis, Treatment, and Management.  Henry Holt &   Co.,   New York.  2001. 

                        Fassler,  David G., M.D. and Dumas, Lynne S.,  Help Me, I’m Sad:   Recognizing, Treating and Preventing Childhood and Adolescent Depression.  Penguin Putnam, Inc.,  N.Y. , N.Y. 1997.   

                        Ingersoll, Barbara D., Ph.D. and Goldstein, Sara, Ph.D.,  Lonely, Sad and  Angry: A Parent’s  Guide to Depression in Children and Adolescents.   Doubleday,  N.Y., N.Y. 1995.

                        Jacobs, Douglas G., M.D., editor.  The Harvard Medical Guide to Suicide.  Jossey-Bass, Inc.,  San Francisco. 1999.

                        Jamison, Kay Redfield.  Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide. Knopf,  N.Y., N.Y. 1999. 

                        Riley, Douglas A., M.D. The Depressed Child:  A Parent's Guide  for Rescuing Kids.  Cooper  Square Press, New York. 2000.  Paper, 183 pp. 

                        Shamoo, Tania K.  and  Patros, Philip.   I Want to Kill  Myself:  Helping Your Child Cope  with Depression and Suicidal Thoughts .   D.C. Heath &  Co.,  Lexington , MA. 1990.  

Recommended by our site visitors:

                        Papolos ,  Demitri , M.D., Papolos , Janice.   The Bipolar  Child.    Broadway House, 1999.  “The only book (that I have found) that is exclusively about  children with this illness.   It is extremely thorough and deals with everything from treatment, the impact on families, insurance and how to  deal with school.”

                        Dudman , Martha Tod,   Augusta Gone .  Simon &  Schuster, 2001.  "This is a book  I loved and read more than once.  This author puts words to my own guilt,  worry, and helplessness.  I was gratified to read about another mother who  had experienced the isolation from other parents that I had also felt."

Website Links

      athealth.com, “Depression in Children and Adolescents”: 

      Fava , M.  and Rosenbaum, J.F.  “Anger Attacks in Patients with Depression.”  Journal  of  Clinical Psychiatry, 1999; 60  Suppl. 15:1-4. 

      Katz, M.M.,  Koslow,  S.H. and Frazer, A.  “Onset of  Antidepressant Activity:  Reexamining the  Structure of Depression and Multiple Actions of Drugs.”    Depression/Anxiety, 1996-97, pp. 57-67. 

       The   above link only reaches the Medical Library search page.  Enter Katz and  Koslow  to find the article.

Library of the  National Medical Society.   http://www.medical-library.org  This site  links to a great deal of    material.  You must pay for access, but the  annual cost is only about ten dollars.  If you want to see generalized or  specialized articles from a large collection of professional journals at a  small price, this is a very useful site.  (When it asks for password, click that a couple of  times and you should bypass it).           

        McMan's  Depression and Bipolar Web:  Lots of  information on this site, well-organized and attractively presented.  It  is a general depression and bipolar site, with some categories directed at  these illnesses in children.

        Mourilehe  P. and Stokes, P.E.  “Risks and Benefits of  Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors  in the Treatment of Depression”.  Drug Safety. Jan. 1998.

       Northern County Psychiatric Associates, Baltimore, Md , “Child and Adolescent Depression: Diagnosis and Treatment” 

       Rabiner , David, M.D.,  “The Emotional Experience of Children  With  ADHD” 

       Reactive Attachment Disorder website:  A website operated by parents of  kids with RAD, a relatively new DSM IV disorder in which kids fail to relate  normally with parents and sometimes others.  The cause is lack of  trust.  The result can be rage behavior. 

      Son,  Sung E., M.D. and Kirchner, Jeffrey T., D.O., “Depression in Children and Adolescents”, American Family Physician, Nov. 15, 2000,  Vol. 62/No. 10. 

     Teencentral :   A  variety of material on issues of importance to teen-agers,  plus personal essays, chat, etc. Not mental health specific, but perhaps  useful.

     Uncommon Knowledge, Ltd.:  Clinical Depression.  This  UK  website  contains extensive -- but largely  unsourced  --  opinions and facts about drug treatment and counseling.  It is thought  provoking and focused on counseling v. medication.  It is clearly directed at treatment of depression in  adults.  At the end of the "learning path" the reader finds  that the site will offer a publication related to depression counseling and self-help – for a price.  Use the free part. 

        Weinberg, Warren A., M.D., Harper, Caryn R., M.D., Emslie , Graham J., M.D. and Brumback , Roger A., Md.  “Depression  and Other Affective Illnesses as a Cause of  School Failure and  Maladaption  in Learning Disabled  Children, Adolescents and Young Adults.”  Chapter 15, Secondary Education and  Beyond.

       Send us your own favorite sites for posting at webmaster@depressedchild.org

   DISCLAIMER:  Unless otherwise indicated, all commentary and information on this web site is provided by persons who have no formal training in medicine or mental health.  You should weigh the information and comment on this site in consultation with a mental health professional.