Short-term Psychotherapy Groups for Children: Adapting Group Processes for Specific Problems

The short term group approach to child therapy is of enormous clinical importance. Group therapy complements the normal developmental tasks that further children's capacities for social interaction and is a proven method of helping children and adolescents overcome a wide range of emotional and behavioral problems. This comprehensive manual offers specific how-to guidelines for conducting a wide range of psychotherapy groups and detailed session-by-session descriptions of sixteen structured group interventions. Time-limited, structured, educational, and goal-oriented, these groups focus on such core treatment issues as separation and divorce, alcoholism, bereavement, sexual abuse, fears and anxieties, anger management, weight loss, and encopresis. In this practical sourcebook of group interventions, experts in child and adolescent group therapy demonstrate how to achieve therapeutic gains with a limited number of sessions. A valuable resource for clinicians, this book also validates using group therapy as a primary, rather than auxiliary, form of child psychotherapy.