Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties

‘Difficulties’ is a tame word. This is reflected in Prime Minister Harold Macmillan’s ironic comments about the resignation of treasury ministers, ‘I thought the best thing to do was to settle up these little local difficulties, and then to turn to the wider vision of the Commonwealth’. Certainly, the word ‘difficulties’ hardly conveys the severity and complexities of some levels of emotional and behavioural disturbance. Emotional and behavioural difficulties (EBD) refer to a range of difficulties including neurosis, anti-social behaviour and, very rarely, in residential special provision, psychosis.