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Body psychotherapy is an important part of a multimodal approach in clinical treatment for many psychiatric disorders. The ICD-10 is not helpful for finding the appropriate kind of body psychotherapy among many different kinds in a psychodynamic orientated approach because the phenomenological categories of this instrument don't aim on the structure of the personality underlying the psychic disorder. In this article we suggest a concept of a development- and structure based body psychotherapy which refers to the axis "structure" of the OPD-CA.

Previous research showed that children in classes with reduced curriculum ("ready for school classes") perform systematically poorer in short-term memory, attention control and motor coordination skills than children in regular classes. Based on these results, a training to improve children's planning, sequencing, and executive control of motor actions was developed. It includes body coordination, (bi-) manual coordination, rhythm and balance. The tasks stress flexibility of action, interference control and focused attention. Training sessions proceed from easy to complex, from action accuracy to speed, and from teacher guidance to children's self monitoring. Over the course of 3 weeks, 53 children were trained daily for 20 mins. In pre- and posttests, motor coordination was assessed with the M-ABC; focused attention, short-term memory performance, and self-concept was tested with paper-pencil and computerized tasks. Half of the children were trained between pre- and posttest, the other half received the training after posttest. Results revealed no global training effects; however, children in the training condition caught up during training in specific cognitive and motor tasks, and trained children showed a more optimistic self-concept. Training effects were pronounced for children with balance problems. The findings are discussed in terms of reasons for the weak training effects, and potential improvements of the training.

Objective: This article gives an overview of diagnostic and therapeutic procedures in the field of movement therapy in German psychiatric clinics for children and adolescents., Methods: The data is based on two surveys made in 2004 and 2005 with a feedback quota of about 50% of all German clinics of that kind., Results: The result gives information about the qualification of the therapeutic staff working in the field of movement therapy, about their theoretical orientation, the diagnostic instruments used and their overall objectives., Conclusions: Apparently a heterogenity concerning objectives and methods can be observed. Based on such diversity the necessity of sharpening the professional profile is discussed. Furthermore, a perspective for future structuralisation is developed.

There are many children in child guidance showing those behavior problems which are said to be symptoms of the discussed MBD-syndrome. They should get help, their parents should get advise. Here we present the typical elements of our combined therapeutic strategy, which we practise with pupils of primary schools.

The problems involved in treating psychogenic movement disorders in mentally retarded persons are pointed out. A psychoanalytic approach is doomed to failure because of the mental handicap. The authors report positive therapeutic results with a 17-year-old girl who had a severe hysterical movement disorder including sudden falls and a grotesque gait. Successful behavior therapy with this patient supports the hypothesis that conditioning was the chief factor in the maintenance of the symptoms and indicates that even severe mental retardation does not necessarily imply that there will be resistance to extinction. The individuals of greatest significance to the patient should, in the author's view, play an important part in the treatment program.

After a short introduction setting out the importance of development dimensions for the understanding of disturbances of development and some statistics on the frequency of peculiarities of behavior in the preschool age, some disorders of mental development of practical importance in the first years of life are dealt with. Psychomotor disturbances, disorders of speech and speaking and emotional and contact disturbances are emphasized.

Even after coarse movements have largely become normal, a distrubed motoricity and sensitivity remains in the orofacial region of some children with cerebral lesions, with disordered function of the transport of saliva and masticated food. So far, we have treated 9 children with moderately severe to slight degrees of cerebral disturbances of movement. The first month of treatment with a modified activator showed encouraging results. The apparatus is intended to transform and coordinate the pathological muscular action in the region of the mouth into the most physiological movement possible.

Physiological unrest of children seems to originate from a basic need for activity in humans. It becomes apparent as "enjoyment of action" during age-specific periods, particularly during emotional phases of development. Apart from clearly neurological diseases, psychomotoric unrest as a pathological symptom can be observed in three forms different in artiology and psychodynamics: as cerebral unrest, psycho-vegetative unrest, and neurotic unrest. Causes, psychodynamics and appearances of the unrest as mentioned before are discussed and illustrated by details of case histories. Basically, the psychomotoric unrest is an expression of frustrated emotion, preventing the child from adjustment to reality, thereby causing a deficit of experience, which inturn is the reason for a secondary lack of success, to which the child reacts again with psychomotoric unrest. Therapy has to interrupt this vicious circle by three recommended approaches: drug therapy, child guidance, and psycho-therapy. Sociological aspects of the "restless child" are mentioned.

For the dissolution of secondary neuroses of children with motor dysontogenesis there is recommended an active play-therapeutic method: concrete life situations are represented in free play, in the playing of fairy-tale parts, by the Szeno test, by clay-molded figures, and by drawings. The experience gained encouraged the author to further develop this particular method.