The Inpatient Treatment Process for Severe School Refusal

Successful treatment of school refusal must target several areas, since there are child, parent and family based reinforcers. This requires an integrated treatment including psychopharmacology, psychoeducation, somatic management techniques, cognitive-behavioral restructuring, social and communication skills training and working with parents. A vital part of treatment is establishing rewards and punishments, contingency management and exposure to school. However, these goals cannot be achieved in every case with outpatient treatment. Here, we have presented two cases, who were hospitalized due to severe symptoms which were not responsive to routine treatment. Multimodal treatment involving a three-stage cognitive behavioral intervention, family therapy, social skills training, relaxation training, contingency management and pharmacotherapy was used.