L'enfant et l'adolescent instables. Études cliniques et psychologiques

Abstract

Reviews the book, L'enfant et l'adolescent instables. Etudes cliniques et psychologiques by Jadwiga Abramson (1940). The "unstable child" is a generic term which no one has acceptably defined with any very great precision. It includes children who are hyperactive, emotional, delinquent, vacillating, psychopathic, and so on through a list inclusive of almost every kind of behavior difficulty. However, in spite of the wide variations in connotation, there is fairly universal practical agreement as to what is meant by an unstable child. Dr. Abramson reviews at length the descriptions and definitions presented in the literature, but perhaps wisely refrains from formulating any specific characterization of these children. The analysis of the nature and development of instability is based upon horizontal and longitudinal studies of 1,117 children seen first during the years 1926 to 1928 at the Clinique Annexe de Neuro-Psychiatric Infantile. These children were selected from a total of 2,212 patients seen during these years. The statistical treatment of the data is supported by reference to eighty-seven case histories typical of various kinds of behavior included. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)