You might regard words as dependable things, that never do anything more tricksy than linger overly long on the tip of your tongue. But beware – don't let them gang up on you, or you'll be left with phrases.

George Orwell (1946) wrote in ‘Politics and the English language’ that:

“prose consists less and less of words chosen for the sake of their meaning, and more and more of phrases tacked together … the ready-made phrases come crowding in. They will construct your sentences for you – even think your thoughts for you, to a certain extent – and at need they will perform the important service of partially concealing your meaning even from yourself.”(pp. 145, 152, italics in original)

It did not take me long to find that I belonged to the ‘marginal’ section of Norwegian society. Both as foreigner and psychiatrist I seemed to be a threat. Nevertheless it is from society's marginal groups that healers have often come (Miller, 1987) and so I continue to work with a necessary and natural cultural naivety and therapeutic optimism! I present here an overview and critique of the services provided for children in Oslo from the privileged position of a migrant. The high staffing levels and the profile of child and adolescent psychiatry appear to have exaggerated the ‘psychologising’ of problems and a search for therapy. These have the potential to inflame both interprofessional conflicts and interdisciplinary conflicts because of the emphasis on therapeutic skills to the relative exclusion of a relevant knowledge base.