Coping with pain: a developmental approach to treatment of burned children

Abstract

The treatment of children aged 1-18 who experienced physical pain from an acute burn and the emotional pain of disfigurement offers a prototype for treatment of pain and understanding its impact on the child's emotional life. The author presents an initial report on differential response to and treatment of burn pain in infancy, the preschool years, latency, preadolescence, and adolescence. He describes the basic therapeutic interventions for such children, including psychological preparation, consistent "holding" relationships, selective reinforcement of denial, tolerance of regression, medications, and hypnosis or relaxation techniques.