Infant Psychiatry: Review of Recent Trends

Abstract

Infant psychiatry has developed rather recently as a subspecialty that is concerned with clinical problems in the mental development of infants. We have limited knowledge of the clinical problems and normal mental development during these years and must still depend on other academic fields such as developmental psychology, developmental neurology, pediatrics, and obstetrics. The aim of this chapter is to review recent trends in infant psychiatry by focusing on several relevant topics. In this review, the field of infant psychiatry is divided into two parts: theoretical and clinical (practical) aspects. In the theoretical aspect, recent progress in understanding the normal development of (1) cognitive (including the issue of “state”), (2) motor, and (3) emotional and social functions of newborn and young infants is described. The issue of continuity and discontinuity of development from infancy to later developmental periods is also described. In the clinical aspect, the following topics are discussed: (1) infant health checkups at 1.5 and 3.0 years; (2) prognosis for high-risk infants; (3) classification of infant psychiatric disorders; and (4) intervention and therapeutic methods for infant psychiatric disorders. Strong emphasis is placed on the need in both the theoretical and clinical areas of infant psychiatry to take a prospective rather than a retrospective stance. Such a stance enables us to consider the relation of infant development to later developmental periods in the life cycle.