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In reading this book one enters the emotional life of the child. Acting on his belief that the best way to learn therapeutic techniques is to experience the actual process of therapy, Morton Chethik makes the child patient come alive by using extensive vignettes or full case descriptions. The reader thus experiences the case as treatment unfolds with all of its attendant problems, difficulties, and strategies. Chethik then extracts and discusses basic concepts embedded in the clinical material.

Effectively integrating the theoretical with the practical, TECHNIQUES OF CHILD THERAPY both addresses major issues in contemporary child psychotherapy and highlights the struggles practitioners frequently experience during the course of long-term treatment. On the theoretical level, it redefines and adapts basic concepts of adult dynamic psychotherapy--such as therapeutic alliance, resistance, transference, insight, countertransference, interventionto the unique requirements of therapy with children.

The work also demonstrates that an essential modification in work with children is the use of play as a the basic form of communication between patient and therapist. Because a primary purpose of all psychotherapy is to work with the patient's affective life, play is a central medium since it is commonly children's major mode of expressing their emotional lives. The book focuses on how to facilitate play in treatment as well as how to use and understand therapeutic play as it occurs in the course of treatment.

Also highlighted are the differential techniques necessary for dealing with the distinct--and distinctive--manifestations of major psychopathologies in children. This core section of the book describes in detail the treatment of several neurotic children through intensive ``uncovering'' psychotherapy. It then contrasts this approach with other forms of treatment specifically geared to borderline, narcissistic and character-disordered children.

Finally, since no treatment of the child can be effective without working with the parents, TECHNIQUES OF CHILD THERAPY also discusses and illustrates established parent-intervention strategies. These interventions range from supportive parent guidance to in-depth treatment of the parent-child relationship.

TECHNIQUES IN CHILD THERAPY reflects the typical issues and problems with which all practitioners and trainees in child psychotherapy must grapple. Its extensive clinical material yields unique insights into the emotional and cognitive world of the child as well as effective treatment strategies that will be invaluable to psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers who work with children.

Tabla de contenidos provista por Syndetics

• I Introduction to Child Therapy
• Introduction
• 1 General Characteristics of the Child Patient
• 2 The Process of Assessment and Its Role in the Treatment Process
• 3 The Central Role of Play
• II Work with Parents
• Introduction
• 4 Parent Guidance and Transference Parenting
• 5 Treatment of the Parent-Child Relationship
• III The Process of Treatment: The Fundamentals
• 6 Treatment of the Neurotic Child
• 7 Treatment of Character Pathology
• 8 Treatment of the Borderline Child
• 9 Treatment of the Narcissistically Disturbed Child
• 10 Focal Psychotherapy
• IV The Process of Treatment: An Elaboration
• 11 The Case of Andy
• 12 The Case of Margaret

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CHOICE Review

Chethik stresses the importance of the therapist entering the child's emotional world in order to understand and treat the young patient. Chethik, a psychoanalytically trained social worker who holds appointments at the University of Michigan, addresses mainly long-term therapy issues such as resistance, transference and countertransference, insight, and other concerns as they relate to the child undergoing therapy. There is one chapter on focal therapy, a more short-term therapy appropriate for a situational crisis such as divorce or illness. In working with children, Chethik emphasizes several points, including understanding the fluctuating state of the child's ego and the need to incorporate play in therapy as a means of communication between the therapist and the child. He also discusses working with parents, the child's need for growth, and the therapist's internal responses and counterreactions to the child. The author believes the therapist must do an exhaustive assessment of the child to intervene effectively. Chethik's emphasis on clinical material with children makes the book very interesting and readable. Although the author offers few new ideas, he reemphasizes many important thoughts and offers valuable treatment strategies. An important resource for both graduate students new to psychotherapy and faculty and professionals already in the field. -S. B. Wallace, Wake Forest University