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Pendulum

When I first started to work as a physician we had lots of patients in mental health services who were depressed and exhausted. Sick leave was often discussed. This is certainly the case nowadays, too. But that time, the common understanding in the society was that negative events and bad circumstances in private life were…

Desperate legislative processes and a happy composter

A particularly naive legislative proposal is being seriously discussed in the Finnish society: an initiative that when school bullying occurs, the bully should be made to change school instead of the victim. Of adolescents who are frequently involved in bullying as perpetrators, almost a half are also frequently subjected to bullying themselves. On the other…

Coercion or love?

In October I attended the 10th European congress in Violence in Clinical Psychiatry (http://www.oudconsultancy.nl/dublin_10_ECVCP_2017/index.html) in Dublin. I have attended many of the earlier ones, and have always found these congresses most relevant from the point of view of getting new ideas for developing our adolescent forensic service. This time it was as good as always….

Digital frustration

A planned participation through digital connections failed again. I am so frustrated to live in the middle of the hype that Finnish health care will go all digital and a number of problems will disappear and everybody get more services and be happier with less expenses when only we start to use information and communication…

Treatment as Usual

I am a member in a work group that is developing national guidelines for treatment of conduct disorder. It is most interesting although bothersome work. Hundreds, thousands of scientific articles have been written about conduct disorder. We are reviewing evidence base for treatment recommendations in a most rigorous way. There are a number of high…

Composter news and fruits of brainwork

After an exceptionally burdening spring season – thanks to countless meetings and often chaotic discussions concerning the planned huge reform of health and social care – I was in desperate need of holiday. I informed my junior researchers that I shall be away and may not even read article manuscripts between midsummer and end of…

Let’s meet in EFCAP

On behalf of EFCAP Finland, I am proud to announce that the program for the EFCAP conference in November is ready and can be found in www.efcap.fi . The program focuses on most challenging problems in the interface of psychiatry, child welfare and law, such as parental alienation; what can we actually do to stop…

Easter Bunny enjoys Christmas light decorations

Fortunately I had not taken away the Christmas season light decorations from the balcony. When it snowed for Easter there was actually a better Christmas Eve dream weather than during Christmas time. Christmas and Easter seem almost inseparable anyway, because it has been so hectic time with participating in creating the planned enormous health and…

A model of research and service development

There is not much to do in the garden in winter time in Finland, at least not in my level of gardening skills. I let everything hibernate under the snow. Instead, there is a lot of work to do with the composter. Composting has really turned out to be much more demanding than I expected….

Always remember to question

“Sydämen asialla” gala dinner was organized last night to support the new Center for Child and Adolescent Medicine that is being built in Tampere University Hospital. In the end of 2019, all specialist level medical and psychiatric care of minors in the university hospital will be provided in the new Center (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSbhNX2sii0). This will essentially…