The intention of this book is to provide an overview of child and adolescent psychiatry in Europe, focusing on the historical development, current situation, and future perspectives of the specialty. Child and adolescent psychiatry is now acknowledged as a medical specialty or subspecialty in almost all European countries. Also, the number of child psychia trists has increased dramatically over the last decade. However, there are still enormous differences from country to country, not only with regard to the num ber of specialists, but also with regard to the extent and nature of services provided and their diagnostic and therapeutic orientation. Furthermore, important differ ences exist in the training curricula for child and adolescent psychiatry within medicine and other professional fields, both inside and outside the universities, and in the image and importance of this discipline to the public. This diversity is also reflected in the reports on the historical development, current situation and future perspectives of child and adolescent psychiatry in 31 European countries, all following the same structure in order to facilitate compa rability. This structure comprises (1) the historical development and the current situation, (2) classification systems and diagnostic and therapeutic methods, (3) structure and organization of services, (4) cooperation with other medical and non-medical disciplines, (5) training and continuing medical education, (6) research, and (7) future perspectives.
