Certain catastrophes in certain children can forever change biology by creating and maintaining early warning systems, perpetual wariness, in a world that, long afterwards, remains ever hazardous and threatening —in which the demons of nightmares become real. The presence or persistence of post-traumatic symptoms need not outweigh the healthy capacity to live. Child psychiatrists can sometimes provide a road map, without shortcuts, toward the resumption of travel in the right direction. (11 pp.)

For the child with a blackly depressive mood, more tools than time’s passage are required: psychotherapy, medication and a panoramic lens that widens one’s view of the world. Will doesn’t always produce a way, but it helps when hell waits around one’s corner.(12 pp.)

All varieties of psychological disorder, beginning in childhood and moving into adolescence and adult life, tend to be organized by obsessive-compulsive phenomena, whether they are repetitive images or ritualized behaviors. In this respect they may alert the clinician, like highway flares, to trouble ahead. At times they are furtive, arriving suddenly and silently, leaving without a trace. Or they may become relatively fixed as annoying companions or alien, persecutory furies. (11 pp.)