Abstract
The two main components of child psychiatric training should be supervised clinical work of high quality and training in the questing, scientific approach to the subject. These should be combined so that residents consider the assessment and management of all their clinical cases in a critical way, at the same time looking critically also at the pertinent literature. Management and treatment methods should be selected in the context of discussion of the current state of knowledge in the area. Trainees should see and treat children and adolescents of all ages and with the full range of psychiatric disorders. Ten percent of their caseload should consist of mentally retarded children. It may be necessary to teach about some rare syndromes by the use of videotapes. Residents should be familiar with the uses, and drawbacks, of a wide range of therapies, including residential treatment, but can only be expected to develop special expertise in a few. Didactic teaching unrelated to clinical work is probably of limited value.