Suicide by Security Blanket, and Other Stories from the Child Psychiatry Emergency Service

This book offers a unique glimpse into the startlingly complex world of acute children's psychiatry through 12 chapters, each inspired by the actual visit of a child in psychiatric crisis to one of the most well-known psychiatric emergency rooms in the nation.Suicide by Security Blanket, and Other Stories from the Child Psychiatry Emergency Service: What Happens to Children with Acute Mental Illness takes the reader inside the child psychiatry emergency room at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in Boston. Each chapter highlights both the child's dilemma and the doctors' thought processes, and stresses the elements of rapid assessment. The real-life patient stories also offer myriad teaching points about child development and the warning signs of illness, and provide compelling lessons regarding types of interactions with school systems, health care systems, and family systems. Each individual story presents the breadth and depth of the child psychiatric emergency evaluation at MGH, from initial assessment to disposition, presenting a genuine glimpse into the children's psychiatric emergency room at one of the nation's most famous psychiatric departments. This book demonstrates vividly how even the best-intentioned communities can fail to offer services to their neediest families. Each story presents a fascinating glimpse into the complex and sometimes tragic world of child psychiatry on the front lines.

"These tales are riveting. In the book’s introduction, Praeger acknowledges a fascination with the children’s stories. Clearly she understands how to listen carefully and, more important here, portray a character in a few well-chosen phrases. Readers hear, see and smell the tiny interview rooms where psychiatry residents speak to their patients. . . . insightful and disturbing. . . . Putting a human face on a problem can help people comprehend it, and ideally motivate them to act. Suicide by Security Blanket presents a particularly disturbing set of faces with an especially powerful claim to attention. May it yield the kind of action its subjects so urgently require." - The Washington Independent Review of Books

Laura M. Prager, MD, is assistant professor of psychiatry (child psychiatry) at Harvard Medical School and director of the Child Psychiatry Emergency Service at Massachusetts General Hospital.Abigail L. Donovan, MD, is assistant psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital and clinical instructor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.