Center for Child and Adolescent Mental Health

Someone once said, “The spirit is the architect of the body, and the body is the mirror of the mind.” In this sense, there is indeed no health without mental health. This is also recognized by the staff of the Center for Mental Health.

The team of the Center for Mental Health consists of graduate speech therapists, graduate psychologists, a specialist in clinical psychology, and a nurse.

Nurse

The nurse is responsible for administrative services, manages the appointment (and rescheduling) system and waiting lists, and participates in systematic examinations.

Speech Therapists

Graduate speech therapists perform preventive screenings of speech-language communication for 5-year-old children. These involve a diagnostic process to identify children with difficulties or disorders in the speech-language field. In cases of significant deviations, the child is referred to speech-language therapy, which is provided by the speech therapists at the department.

Psychologists

Graduate psychologists (or those holding a master’s degree in psychology) perform preventive psychological systematic examinations of 3-year-old children. These assessments aim to evaluate the child’s development and identify children with developmental or behavioral difficulties.

In addition, psychologists perform: basic developmental diagnostic assessments, diagnostic evaluations of potential learning difficulties,
follow-up, counseling, and referrals to appropriate programs or educational institutions suitable for children with special needs, counseling for potential parenting difficulties.

They also conduct psychological assessments of motor vehicle drivers and psychological systematic examinations for jobs with high risk factors, as well as provide psychological opinions and evaluations (in cooperation with the Department of Occupational, Traffic, and Sports Medicine). Psychologists work in multidisciplinary teams and are therefore involved in: Community Psychiatric Care (SPO), Health Education Center (ZVC), Center for the Prevention and Treatment of Drug Addiction (CPZOPD).

Clinical Psychologist

The clinical psychologist carries out clinical psychological (differential-diagnostic) assessments for children, adolescents, and adults referred by pediatricians, school doctors, family doctors, gynecologists, psychiatrists, neurologists, or other physicians. She also provides psychotherapeutic services based on the principles of behavioral-cognitive therapy and psychoanalytic developmental psychotherapy, in which she is also trained.

In children and adolescents, clinical psychological diagnostic examinations involve detecting and differentiating: developmental disorders, speech-language difficulties, emotional-behavioral disorders (phobias, depressive disorder, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, psychosomatic issues),
hyperkinetic disorders (including concentration disorders), pervasive developmental disorders (including autism spectrum disorders), tics, and others.

In adults, clinical psychological assessments involve: general and differential-diagnostic examinations for psychiatric treatment (primarily the evaluation and differentiation of various mental and behavioral disorders such as schizophrenia, mood disorders, neurotic, stress-related, and somatoform disorders, personality disorders, etc.), diagnostic examinations required by other medical specialists in somatic medicine, basic and advanced neuropsychological (differential) diagnostics for neurological treatment (assisting in detecting various types of dementia, assessing cognitive states after traumatic brain injury or cerebrovascular diseases, etc.).