Working with Adolescents with Mental Disorders: The Efficacy of a Multiprofessional Intervention (Report‪)‬

1. INTRODUCTION The approaches to problems concerning mental health can historically be grouped into three theoretical-methodological systems: the psychological one, the bio-pharmacological one and the socio-environmental one. The operators have often the tendency to ideologically support one the above approaches thus emphasizing a dichotomy which originates from an old separation between body and mind and between individual and setting. According to this trend the therapist with biological education often tends to reduce everything to choosing the appropriate drug to eliminate the symptom. The therapist with psychological education is only interested in giving the patient the most suitable interpretation for putting him in the condition to overcome the symptom; while the educational therapist tends to search for the breakdowns of social nature which are considered the cause of the pathological behaviors, in order to suggest more adequate relational models. Everyone penned in his own shell often mistrusts the other approach running the risk of misunderstanding the patient's needs and of carrying out partial or ineffective interventions.