Children torturing animals - does this indicate any underlying problems?

amz5

Can anyone lead me to any papers or articles about the type of disturbed behaviour that young children exhibit that might be an indicator for any specific psychological disorders?

Would being cruel to other children and fantasising about being cruel to animals (and actually being cruel to animals) set off alarm bells? If so, why?

Odysseus

amz5 wrote: »

Can anyone lead me to any papers or articles about the type of disturbed behaviour that young children exhibit that might be an indicator for any specific psychological disorders?

Would being cruel to other children and fantasising about being cruel to animals (and actually being cruel to animals) set off alarm bells? If so, why?

If you have access try some forensic psychology core texts, they won't give you a lot, but should give you some references.

Velvety

Isn't there an item about hurting animals as a child in the Hare Psychopathy Checklist?

Odysseus

Velvety wrote: »

Isn't there an item about hurting animals as a child in the Hare Psychopathy Checklist?

I would have to check but I think you are correct.

Odysseus

The only ref I have here is Bartol and Bartol a forensic core text which states some research has shown an interesting association between lack of empathy and animal cruelty. If it occurs in childhood, it can signify serious problem behaviour. Stouthammer-Lober 2004 found it to be one of the strongest predictors of serious, violent criminal behaviour. Wright and Hensley 2003 found a link between it and later serial murders, other similar research was conducted by Merz-Perez, Heide, and Silverman 2001.

So that might give you a few starting points to explore the subject

Gibs

amz5 wrote: »

Can anyone lead me to any papers or articles about the type of disturbed behaviour that young children exhibit that might be an indicator for any specific psychological disorders?

Would being cruel to other children and fantasising about being cruel to animals (and actually being cruel to animals) set off alarm bells? If so, why?

Cruelty to animals or other children is one of the diagnostic criteria for conduct disorder. This diagnosis includes the following clinical features
Aggression/cruelty to people and/or animals, destruction of property, deceitfulness, theft, fire-setting, truancy and running away from home, and severe provocative or disobedient behaviour. These behaviours result in significant impact on family and peer relationships, and schooling. ICD-10 requires 1 or more feature at a marked level for over 6 months; DSM-IV requires 3 or more over 12 months, with 1 in last 6 months.

Odysseus

Gibs wrote: »

Cruelty to animals or other children is one of the diagnostic criteria for conduct disorder. This diagnosis includes the following clinical features
Aggression/cruelty to people and/or animals, destruction of property, deceitfulness, theft, fire-setting, truancy and running away from home, and severe provocative or disobedient behaviour. These behaviours result in significant impact on family and peer relationships, and schooling. ICD-10 requires 1 or more feature at a marked level for over 6 months; DSM-IV requires 3 or more over 12 months, with 1 in last 6 months.

Interesting, cheers for that Gibs, the stuff I posted I just lifted out of a core text I had to hand. However, I'm always weary of how general the information in them is. For example, I would like to think I know quite a bit about most theories of addiction, yet in that core text like most; the chapter on addiction would be very poor. I think at best they are good for getting references to actual studies and other detailed resources.

A bit off topic, but I notice you make reference to the ICD-10. I would be more familiar with it than the DSM-IV-TR; I did a lot of my initial post-grad in St. Vincent’s where it was more commonly used. In discussions the DSM is used much more regularly, which in your experience would be more common. I ask as I focused on the differences in psychodiagnostics between the ICD-10/DSM-IV. We would use neither in psychoanalysis, hence my question.

cynder

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macdonald_triad

Try reading this. Someone told me to read this when my 2 year old starting hitting the cat, i blame tom and jerry.

Gibs

I have encountered both in clinical practice and while there seems to be a historical preference for DSM, this is changing in recent years and moving towards ICD, at least in my experience - probably depends on the training or preference of the psychiatrist. From what I understand, it looks like DSM-V will be likely to be closer to ICD than previous iterations were, so the differences may become less important.

I'm not really a fan of either DSM or ICD in terms of actually working with patients/clients although both can be useful ways of communicating between professionals and I (somewhat reluctantly) use both myself, leaning more towards ICD than DSM.

[upcoming rant alert...;)] The difficulty is that unlike most other classification systems in medicine, both DSM and ICD are atheoretical classification systems and hence, while you can use them to diagnose to your heart's content, no explanation, treatment or treament goals are by necessity indicated by the diagnosis. All structure and no function. Hence the need for clinical formulation and the need to contextualise the person's functioning in a broader way rather than merely applying a diagnostic category. While clearly most psychiatrists (and hopefully all psychologists :rolleyes:) don't naively adhere only to a diagnosis when it comes to treatment, there is a troubling tendency, particularly in medical settings, towards reification of diagnostic categories - as if they are actual things that exist in the world. It's like the last 2000 years of philosophical debate never happened :rolleyes:

Despite the above I think there can also be some significant value for some patients/clients (and clinicians!!) in having a label to hang their symptoms on. Overall though, I think the pitfalls of reification and stigmatisation are a high price to pay for having a summary of symptoms.

Just to add a bit of detail to the debate, here's some useful articles on some of the criticisms and defenses of dsm from a special issue of the BPS Psychologist magazine a couple of years ago:

DSM-IV critique article 1
DSM-IV critique article 2
DSM-IV critique article 3
DSM-IV critiques article 4
DSM-IV critique article 5
DSM-IV critique article 6

Response to DSM-IV critique by defenders of DSM-IV

Respose to the response to DSM-IV critique

P.S. Here's another article presenting a debate between two psychiatrists on the utility of schizophrenia as a diagnostic category. One is pro and one is anti. Makes for interesting reading!

amz5

Gibs wrote: »

Cruelty to animals or other children is one of the diagnostic criteria for conduct disorder. This diagnosis includes the following clinical features
Aggression/cruelty to people and/or animals, destruction of property, deceitfulness, theft, fire-setting, truancy and running away from home, and severe provocative or disobedient behaviour. These behaviours result in significant impact on family and peer relationships, and schooling. ICD-10 requires 1 or more feature at a marked level for over 6 months; DSM-IV requires 3 or more over 12 months, with 1 in last 6 months.

If a child is displaying a number of the signs of conduct disorder, who should be contacted to assist the child? Can an educational psychologist diagnose, or does it have to be a clinical psychologist? Thanks for all the input. It's been very helpful and interesting.

Odysseus

Gibs wrote: »

I have encountered both in clinical practice and while there seems to be a historical preference for DSM, this is changing in recent years and moving towards ICD, at least in my experience - probably depends on the training or preference of the psychiatrist. From what I understand, it looks like DSM-V will be likely to be closer to ICD than previous iterations were, so the differences may become less important.

I'm not really a fan of either DSM or ICD in terms of actually working with patients/clients although both can be useful ways of communicating between professionals and I (somewhat reluctantly) use both myself, leaning more towards ICD than DSM.

[upcoming rant alert...;)] The difficulty is that unlike most other classification systems in medicine, both DSM and ICD are atheoretical classification systems and hence, while you can use them to diagnose to your heart's content, no explanation, treatment or treament goals are by necessity indicated by the diagnosis. All structure and no function. Hence the need for clinical formulation and the need to contextualise the person's functioning in a broader way rather than merely applying a diagnostic category. While clearly most psychiatrists (and hopefully all psychologists :rolleyes:) don't naively adhere only to a diagnosis when it comes to treatment, there is a troubling tendency, particularly in medical settings, towards reification of diagnostic categories - as if they are actual things that exist in the world. It's like the last 2000 years of philosophical debate never happened :rolleyes:

Despite the above I think there can also be some significant value for some patients/clients (and clinicians!!) in having a label to hang their symptoms on. Overall though, I think the pitfalls of reification and stigmatisation are a high price to pay for having a summary of symptoms.

Just to add a bit of detail to the debate, here's some useful articles on some of the criticisms and defenses of dsm from a special issue of the BPS Psychologist magazine a couple of years ago:

DSM-IV critique article 1
DSM-IV critique article 2
DSM-IV critique article 3
DSM-IV critiques article 4
DSM-IV critique article 5
DSM-IV critique article 6

Response to DSM-IV critique by defenders of DSM-IV

Respose to the response to DSM-IV critique

P.S. Here's another article presenting a debate between two psychiatrists on the utility of schizophrenia as a diagnostic category. One is pro and one is anti. Makes for interesting reading!

Cheers thanks for the refs Gibs, I have a look at them over the weekend. We don't use that system, but as others other clinicians, etc do I need to be aware of it, but in addition to that I have an interest in psycho diagnostics and the development of both systems, it will be interesting to see what DSM V is like. I would hold a similar position about the vaule of such systems myself.

Gibs

amz5 wrote: »

If a child is displaying a number of the signs of conduct disorder, who should be contacted to assist the child? Can an educational psychologist diagnose, or does it have to be a clinical psychologist? Thanks for all the input. It's been very helpful and interesting.

First port of call is generally the G.P. Children can have behavioural problems for all sorts of reasons. If the G.P. rules out any medical issues, he/she can refer you to an appropriate service for assessment. In some geographical areas this will be a specialist child psychology service and in some areas it will be a child psychiatry/child mental health service. Conduct disorder is usually diagnosed by a child psychiatrist as they tend to receive referrals for more severe behavioural difficulties. A clinical psychologist can also diagnose conduct disorder. At the risk of insulting my educational psychology colleagues , conduct disorder is not generally diagnosed by an educational psychologist.

The HSE have child psychiatry teams in most parts of the country. They will generally only accept referrals from a G.P. Some clinical psychology services will accept direct referrals, but I would suggest going to the G.P. anyway. Unless you are pretty sure about the qualifications and experience of any private psychologists, I would tend to go the HSE route as you will tend to find it easier to get access to a range of services that might be required in order to address (possible) conduct disorder

If you do get a diagnosis of conduct disorder (cd) or it's less severe cousin, oppositional defiant disorder (odd), there are two evidence based interventions that are recommended for the treatment and prevention of these conditions - parent management training (PMT) and child social skills training (CSST). In community settings, the Webster-Stratton programme "The incredible years" is also considered highly effective.

It should be noted that individual counselling, deterrence programmes and vocational programmes do not work and group therapy has been shown to potentially make things worse for those with a diagnosis of CD / ODD as the people in the group end up getting together and engaging in inappropriate behaviour together.

amz5

Gibs wrote: »

At the risk of insulting my educational psychology colleagues , conduct disorder is not generally diagnosed by an educational psychologist.

Thanks. I'm a teacher, and any ODD cases that I'm familiar with have been assessed by a Clinical psychologist and not by an Educational Psychologist, that's why I was wondering. I'm very grateful for all your help

bakedbean

Just to add to this, there is some evidence to link children that are cruel to animals to potential child abuse in the home. The NSPCC have an excellent information handout on this.