Growing Pains

This is a book of stories. The stories that children, young people and their carers have brought to Mike Shooter in his role as a consultant psychiatrist over a career spanning nearly forty years. Each chapter is grouped around particular problems and the devastation they have caused in their lives. Mike recounts his unique approach to therapy; of giving patients time and space to explore their problems, avoiding quick diagnoses, working in communities rather than just behind a clinic desk and within a multidisciplinary team to benefit from multiple perspectives. Not all the stories have a happy ending – no one can be promised a world cured of problems. But everyone can be helped to face those problems with greater strength.