Child & Adolescent Psychopathology

(4 Credits)

While psychopathology courses are commonplace among undergraduate psychology curricula, courses focusing on child and adolescent psychopathology are relatively rare. More novel still is the opportunity to receive instruction in child and adolescent psychopathology from practicing child and adolescent psychiatrists and psychologists. Through seminars and discussions, this course will focus on disease etiology, epidemiology, phenomenology, nosology, and diagnosis. It engages students in a critical review of common child and adolescent psychopathology and challenges social and cultural assumptions of what constitutes "normal" versus "pathological" behaviour, cognition, and emotion. Subject to the number of students enrolled, there may also be an opportunity to observe the evaluation of a child or adolescent patient by a psychiatrist in a clinic.