Paediatric Outpatient Clinic

When treating children and adolescents, we first examine their age, their stage of development and the degree to which the child or adolescent is unable to cope with their problems. In many cases, young children’s parents and/or carers participate in the therapy. Once the nature of the problem is clear, treatment may be a short process; in other words between 8 and 12 sessions. If the problems have been present for some time and are complex, a longer period of therapy may be necessary; in other words weekly sessions for between 6 months and a year.

An invitation for an initial interview (intake session) will be sent once registration has been completed. The registration is complete when you have emailed us your child’s/youngster’s referral letter and returned the registration form to us. Please bring proof of identification and your health insurance card with you to the intake session. During the intake, we will get acquainted with each other, and discuss both the reasons for your seeking help and the nature of the problem. 

The intake is usually followed by a psychodiagnostic test, often using diagnostic measurement tools (interviews, questionnaires etc.) We try to involve the child and the parents as much as we can in order to achieve as comprehensive a picture as possible of the situation. We then draw up a treatment plan based on the therapeutic needs of the parents and child.

Drs. L. Zoon (physician and trainee psychotherapist) and Paula de Jong (clinical psychologist).

Pleased to meet you! My name is Luciano Zoon, and I was born and brought up in Amsterdam. I work as a medical doctor and trainee integrative child therapist. I am currently studying to become a child and adolescent psychotherapist (diploma expected in June 2019), and thoroughly enjoying it. I use various psychotherapeutic techniques depending on the individual in question or the specific situation in order to provide the most suitable therapy for that particular client. I do not judge when it comes to the child’s behaviour but rather try to find the underlying reason for it, together with the child. In the beginning, building a therapeutic relationship is the most important aspect of the therapy, and the initial sessions are based on this factor. I have completed my studies in medicine as well as many other training courses such as EMDR, cognitive behavioural therapy and schema therapy. I want to continue to develop and further expand my knowledge; you never stop learning in this profession. During my medical training, I worked with children and adolescents on an assisted living project. This further enhanced my interest in and enthusiasm for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, particularly in the field of children’s, but also adults’, mental health. In addition to their spontaneity and lack of inhibition, it fascinates me to see how children develop; this intrigues me time and again. What makes a child behave in a particular way or feel the way it does is always a crucial question. We really work together with the child to examine the problem, and when we look at the reason for a problem, we usually home right in on the context and the child’s social and familial system. This is one challenging aspect of the work that I enjoy tackling, examining the context of the problem together with the parents. In this way, we work towards a solution in an average of 5 to 15 therapy sessions.

Some of the symptoms and problems that children can be helped with:

• Behavioural problems such as temper tantrums, antisocial behaviour, lying, bullying, lack of concentration; coping with a behavioural disorder or unusual traits such as being a highly gifted or highly sensitive.
• Physical and psychosomatic problems such as abdominal pain, headache or eczema for which no medical explanation can be found.
• Acquired habits such as nail biting, grinding the teeth, thumb sucking, eating sweets.
• Processing emotional problems such as fear of failure, phobias, grief, divorce, traumas.
• Developmental problems with issues such as eating, sleeping, toilet training, language and speech, learning, bonding problems.

An integrative child therapist will not judge your child and its behaviour; a child has its reasons for acting or feeling the way it does. As a child therapist, I, together with the child, will search for the problem, and for what he or she needs in order to regain control over their life and over the problems that have developed.

If a child or adolescent has experienced one or more traumatic events, emotional, physical or behavioural problems may develop as a result. EMDR can be an effective treatment method that helps provide your child with relief from trauma-related symptoms such as flashbacks, bedwetting, nightmares, sleeping problems, agitation and problems concentrating.

The first thing that has to be done, together with the child and sometimes with the help of its parents, is to determine what traumatic event (the most distressing memory) is upsetting the child. What exactly happened and what does the child see repeatedly in distressing images/flashbacks? Using toy figures, drawing or writing, the child tries to find a representation of the event that is currently the most distressing to look at. What does the child see, in its mind’s eye, when they think about it right now? EMDR takes into account which thoughts and feelings the child has in relation to the image. It also considers what the child actually feels in its body, and where. At the same time, the child is asked to follow the therapist’s finger movements, or listen to a rhythmic sound. After a short session with movements or sounds, the child is asked what it notices; this can be all manner of things. Treatment can stop if the child feels calm when it imagines the scene or thinks back to the event.

Source: www.emdr.nl

In order to register your child, you will need a referral letter from your GP, paediatrician, GGD (mental healthcare)/youth physician, psychiatrist, or child and adolescent healthcare services.

The referral letter has to meet several requirements:

• It must state whether the referral is for basic mental healthcare (in Dutch: basis GGD, formerly ‘1e lijn’) or specialised mental healthcare (in Dutch: gespecialiseerde GGD, formerly ‘2e lijn’).
• It must include a short description of the relevant symptoms and must be signed and dated by the GP.
• Once you have the doctor’s referral letter, you can register your child using the digital registration form that we will send to you.

Please fill in the registration form as completely as possible so that we can properly assess the symptoms and length of treatment required.

Please email your registration to: info@psychotherapymovement.nl