Am J Psychiatry 1982; 139:736-740
Copyright © 1982 by American Psychiatric Association
Coping with pain: a developmental approach to treatment of burned children
FJ Stoddard
The treatment of children aged 1-18 who experienced physical pain from an
acute burn and the emotional pain of disfigurement offers a prototype for
treatment of pain and understanding its impact on the child's emotional
life. The author presents an initial report on differential response to and
treatment of burn pain in infancy, the preschool years, latency,
preadolescence, and adolescence. He describes the basic therapeutic
interventions for such children, including psychological preparation,
consistent "holding" relationships, selective reinforcement of denial,
tolerance of regression, medications, and hypnosis or relaxation
techniques.
