Techniques of Child Therapy. Morton Chethik. New York:  Guilford, 1989,  xii + 276 pp.

Psychotherapy with children is a demanding task. To be sure, all therapy is difficult, but there are aspects of child therapy that make it uniquely tough. To begin with, children are usually referred for therapy because someone else has a problem with them. It is not uncommon for a child's symptoms to reflect interactions and attitudes of parents and siblings who, themselves, may be unable or unwilling to change. These can sometimes present insuperable problems and doom a therapeutic intervention.

There are other difficulties in working with children. By their very nature, they are usually not terribly introspective. Furthermore, they tend to be emotionally labile and behaviorally erratic. Very young children, of course, are unable to use words to express their fears and wishes. Children can be very much at home with primitive ideas and fantasies. At times, therapy sessions with children can feel intellectually stultifying. A distinction between psychotherapy and child rearing, to the extent that a clear one does indeed exist, can often be blurred. These contingencies are but a few of the many that make the practice of psychotherapy with children distinctly different from that of adults.