Depression in Children

From Healing Young Brains by Robert Hill, Ph.D. and Eduardo Castro, M.D.

“Often children do not demonstrate the typical signs we think of as depressive signals; instead, some children become more irritable and defiant. They are often angry about not feeling well and so they act out or show irritability or impulsivity. They get labeled as stubborn, disobedient, oppositional, or mean, when, in fact, they just feel lousy and are mad about it. Depression produces unhappy feeling and often severe emotional pain. No one wants a child to live in a chronic state of unhappiness. Brainwave training can help even with severe symptoms. If a child or an adult is on antidepressant medication when they come for neurofeedback, they are usually trained while they are on the medication. As the symptoms improve, the medication is titrated down.”