Integrate psychodynamics and psychopharmacology in treating children

Psychopharmacology has been the mainstay of child and adolescent psychiatry — of all psychiatry — for decades now, but Horacio Hojman, M.D., M.B.A., believes it's important for the prescriber to have a therapeutic alliance with the patient. Hojman, clinical associate professor of psychiatry and human behavior with the Alpert Medical School at Brown University, and on the faculty at the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, trained in what he calls the “old system,” in Argentina, where the residency training included being taught by professors of psychiatry and psychoanalysis toward a balanced treatment approach. We talked to Hojman last month about his approach around the interface between psychopharmacology and psychodynamic psychotherapy.