Systems Theory, Psychiatry, and School Phobia
WILLIAM M. BOLMAN M.D.1
1 Director, Westside Community Mental Health Center, San Francisco, Calif.
In this systems approach to the syndrome of school refusal, the author illustrates how a unifying theory can be applied to a specific clinical problem in psychiatry. The approach allows for an assessment of the contributions by various levels of the system to the production of the school-phobic child: the child himself (including neurological and psychological sublevels), the family, school, community, and broad societal patterns. Following this assessment, the clinician can choose those levels or interfaces that offer the best possibility of leverage for change.
