Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology

This book is for youth workers, social workers, mental health staff, specialist teachers, family support workers, and so on, whose clients present with comorbidity, risk, and difficulty accessing mainstream services. It describes inevitably stressful, unsettling work, providing effective help in complex helping systems. An innovative response emerges, building on adaptive (evidence-based) mentalization-based theory and practice. Uniquely, AMBIT applies mentalizing not only directly, in work with clients, but also in work: (a) with the team, (b) with wider (often “dis-integrated”) networks, and (c) creating cultures of learning and radical transparency. AMBIT is as much an improvement system for teams as a “therapy”—strengthening team identity and coherence, and supporting a wider community of practice. Linking evidence-based practice to practice-based evidence, the book concludes with impact descriptions from some of the nearly 200 AMBIT-trained teams, a client’s perspective, and a challenging analysis of systems of care pointing toward the need to create more mentalizing systems.Less

Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Clinical Handbook is an edited volume that summarizes the current state of the research concerning adolescents and young adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This is important, as the research indicates that young adults have low rates of attendance in post-secondary education, of being competitively employed, and of living independently. Traditionally, the field of autism has focused on early screening, diagnosis, and intervention. The poor outcomes indicate that individuals with ASD experience lifelong struggles, and few other books have focused on adolescents and young adults with ASD. Experts from a multitude of disciplines serving this population have written chapters that summarize the research in their area of expertise and offer practical suggestions for clinicians, teachers, and parents. Each chapter provides a bullet-point abstract, a list of additional resources, and study questions. These features are designed to make it useful for college-level instructors. In addition, each chapter provides suggestions for future research, which are designed to move the field forward.Less

Children and adolescents in the general population and in clinical populations reveal surprisingly high rates of playing with fire or actual firesetting behavior. A single fire has the potential to cause a cascade of serious consequences to the child, family, and the community, some of which may continue forever. Yet, there is limited practical information and advice based on available empirical evidence to help programs or practitioners work effectively with children or adolescents who misuse fire, and their families. This book provides practical guidelines designed to facilitate the clinical assessment and treatment of youthful firesetting behavior based on nearly four decades of research and intervention experience with this population. The topics covered in this book address several important content areas. Initial chapters provide an overview of the significance of the problem, and some lessons learned based on case control, clinical trial, and real-world implementation projects. Recommendations for using screening and assessment measures that evaluate firesetting and general psychosocial issues are included. Several intervention methods are outlined for use with children, caregivers, and families. These methods encompass fire safety education materials and several cognitive-behavioral treatment skills-training procedures that focus on understanding of the fire, affect regulation and self-control, parenting practices, and home-based management programs. The book also includes suggestions to promote professional and program development which reflect on various educational, ethical, legal, collaborative, and community safety considerations. The book’s content is intended to help a diverse array of practitioners understand and target the context in which the misuse of fire occurs.Less

There are many challenges to be faced in contemporary society including the stresses of everyday living in the technological age and changes in patterns of employment and family life. Depression is being experienced in ‘epidemic’ proportions in many Western communities, and in particular amongst young people. The search for effective ways to reverse this trend has resulted in a significant shift in psychological approach from a focus on helplessness and pathology to a more positive orientation that emphasises health and well-being. This volume brings together leading researchers in the field of stress and coping to consider ways in which coping research contributes to our understanding of how people in different sectors of life meet goals and challenges. It provides a synthesis of different but compatible theoretical models that have been developed in the field of stress and coping and provides a way forward beyond the traditional stress and coping paradigms. The emergent model is able to be used to assess a wide range of issues in the stress and coping domain.Less

This book provides an overview of research on the prevalence, dynamics, and impact of child sexual abuse (CSA), as well as factors that influence youth recovery. The history, development, and numerous treatment outcome studies evaluating the efficacy of trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy (TF-CBT), an evidence-based treatment model designed for this population, are described. This includes a clinical overview outlining the theories, principles, values, and components associated with this model and suggestions for addressing complex trauma responses, developmental, and cultural considerations. Screening, engagement, and assessment strategies, as well as general guidelines for using this practical treatment guide are also outlined. The chapters that follow outline practical steps for engaging nonoffending caregivers and youth facing the crisis of CSA in separate individual parent and child sessions as well as conjoint sessions. The acronym PRACTICE outlines the TF-CBT treatment components which include Psychoeducation and parenting, Relaxation, Affect expression and modulation skills, Cognitive coping, Trauma narrative and processing, In vivo mastery, Conjoint sessions, and Enhancing safety and future development. TF-CBT session activities that may be used to implement each of the treatment components are described via clinical descriptions, case examples, and therapist-client dialogues. General suggestions for planning and celebrating the end of therapy are provided. Special considerations and guidelines for addressing sexual behavior problems and difficulties associated with experiencing commercial sexual exploitation are offered. The appendix includes a glossary of terms, useful therapist forms, and valuable client handouts that provide psychoeducation, as well as guidelines for practicing skills between sessions.Less

The book is intended for professionals and researchers involved in education and intervention with children and youth who have autism spectrum disorder. As an edited volume, the book features chapters that address assessment, diagnosis, treatment, and evaluation among the ASD population. Specifically, the book looks at recent developments in service delivery, including innovations of established practices as well as emerging strategies and methods that have proven promising. The chapters examine the research literature, discuss procedural implications, and make recommendations for future practice and inquiry.Less

This online resource provides a practical guide for implementing cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) for children and their families coping with the consequences of persisting pain. It is divided into three sections. The first section presents a brief history, theoretical foundations, and background concerning the development of CBT interventions for children with chronic pain conditions and summarizes research results on the efficacy of CBT. The second section covers assessment and evaluation approaches, patient education, and how to structure and sequence CBT interventions with children and families. The final section describes in detail each cognitive-behavioral intervention, including relaxation and cognitive skills and interventions directed at parents, sleep problems, physical activity, and school functioning. Extensive suggested dialogue and detailed instructions and forms are included, and accompanying appendices provide user-friendly therapist training materials for successful application of clinical techniques to children and families.Less

Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) has shown to be effective in the treatment of childhood OCD. This online Therapist Guide outlines a 12-session CBT-based treatment for OCD that benefits not only children and adolescents, but their families as well. Each session incorporates a family therapy component in addition to individual treatment for the child. It is a combined approach program that educates the child and family about OCD in order to reduce negative feelings of guilt and blame and to normalise family functioning. It also provides guidelines for conducting both imaginal and in vivo exposures, which are techniques at the core of helping children reduce their anxiety. For use with children ages 8 to 17, this online resource is an indispensable tool for clinicians helping children and their families cope with OCD.Less

Volume 9, 1969–1971, introduced by the Swedish training analyst and former president of the Swedish Society, Arne Jemstedt, contains a selection of letters from the last years of Winnicott’s life. The work includes further developments of his work on envy, the use of an object, psychosomatics, the impact of the mother’s unconscious, living creatively, communication, adolescence and rebellion and the final version of transitional objects and transitional phenomena. There are also topical pieces on the moon landing, the contraceptive pill and the building of the Berlin Wall. The volume includes Winnicott’s introduction to Playing and Reality (his most successful book), published in 1971 after his death. Finally, this volume includes a section of various short notes and ideas which could not be reliably dated.Less

Volume 5, introduced by Jennifer and Marcus Johns, covers the years 1955–1959, an extremely productive period of Winnicott’s work in broadcasting, social work, child psychiatry and psychoanalysis. His two Tavistock publications, The Child and the Family, and The Child and the Outside World; and his first collection of essays, Through Paediatrics to Psychoanalysis, were published during this time. In 1955 he married Clare Britton, with whom he had been working during the previous decade, and in 1956 he became President of the British Psychoanalytical Society. It was in this capacity that many of the large number of letters in this volume were composed, relating to the work of his analytical colleagues and the integration of the different training and theoretical groups within the BPAS.Included in this volume are important papers covering diverse areas of Winnicott’s work, including ‘The Anti-social Tendency’, ‘Primary Maternal Preoccupation’, ‘The Mother’s Contribution to Society’, ‘The Capacity to be Alone’, and responses to Klein’s 1957 book Envy and Gratitude.Less

Volume 3 (1946–1951) begins with an introduction by the Italian analysts Vincenzo Bonaminio and Paolo Fabozzi and covers the difficult post-war situation in England and the foundation of the National Health Service. The volume includes papers on juvenile delinquency; critical interventions in debates on the physical treatment of mental disorder, in particular leucotomy and electroconvulsive therapy; and a selection of letters to colleagues, notable among which are those regarding Melanie Klein and the Kleinians within the British Society, and a series of letters to Roger Money-Kyrle on the possible inclusion of an article by him in the volume celebrating Klein’s 70th birthday. Volume 3 contains several important theoretical contributions to psychoanalysis that develop further his accounts of infantile development, mother–child relations and the effects of maternal depression, and aggression, and it sees the publication of the first spoken version of his most famous paper, ‘Transitional Objects and Transitional Phenomena’ [CW 3:6:6].Less

Volume 2, 1939–45, covers the years of World War II. It contains an introduction by the late senior child psychotherapist, Christopher Reeves. The volume includes letters to colleagues, including one to the British Medical Journal with Emanuel Miller and John Bowlby regarding the war and children; a report on war work; Winnicott’s first article on aggression; articles on delinquency and corporal punishment; his contribution to the Controversial Discussions of the British Psychoanalytical Society; texts of his early BBC broadcasts; and the very significant paper, ‘Primitive Emotional Development’, a continually relevant statement of his own evolving position in regard to psychoanalytic theory and practice.Less

Volume eight, 1967–68, is introduced by the eminent British child psychotherapist, Ann Horne. It gathers together Winnicott’s interests in play and playing, and in health, including papers on infantile schizophrenia, the squiggle game, the roots of aggression, interpretation, his significant late paper ‘The Use of an Object’, and his obituary of James Strachey, his first analyst and editor of the Standard Edition of Sigmund Freud. It also includes a number of Winnicott’s letters charting his recovery from a serious illness, from hospital in New York, to his secretary Joyce Coles.Less

Volume 10, Therapeutic Consultations in Child Psychiatry, a posthumous publication of twenty-one case histories of children and adolescents taken over a ten-year period, is introduced by the Florentine analyst and child and adolescent psychiatrist, Marco Armellini. It concerns the application of psychoanalysis to child psychiatry. The technique in these reported cases usually takes the form of what Winnicott describes as the Squiggle Game. Winnicott states that what happens in the game and in the whole interview depends on the use made of the child’s experience, including the material that presents itself. In these consultations, unlike what happens in ongoing intensive analytic cases, interpretation of the unconscious is not the main feature. The backbone of all the work described here is the theory of the emotional development of the individual.Less

The collected works and letters of Donald Winnicott Volume 1 (1911-39) gathers together early memorabilia, his earliest medical writings and his first complete book, Clinical Notes on the Disorders of Childhood. The volume shows Winnicott the paediatrician at work at the same time as Winnicott the psychoanalyst, feeling his way into a deeper acquaintance with psychoanalysis through his analysis with James Strachey, his training at the British Society and his encounter with Melanie Klein. The volume includes his BPAS membership paper, ‘The Manic Defence’. Some papers written after he became a member show Winnicott deploying Kleinian terminology while moving towards his own account of early development. Volume 1 includes an introduction by Ken Robinson.Less

Volume 7 (1964–66) is introduced by the senior Milanese analyst Anna Ferruta and contains an important selection of articles and letters from this very productive period of Winnicott’s working life including articles on the false self, psychosis, psychosomatic illness, regression, children’s thinking, trauma, aggression, dissociation, psychoanalytic research, male and female elements, guilt, the unconscious and a selection of letters on psychoanalytic and more general topics.Less

Volume 4 (1952–1955) is introduced by the distinguished Canadian analyst, Dominique Scarfone. It contains texts of further BBC broadcasts and papers on Winnicott’s contribution to the psychoanalytic study of psychosis and the meaning of regression in analysis. There are letters to members of the British Society and reviews of contemporary books, including a review, with Masud Khan, of Ronald Fairbairn’s Psychoanalytic Studies of the Personality. This volume contains the first published version of ‘Transitional Objects and Transitional Phenomena’ and the whole case history Holding and Interpretation, first published posthumously in 1972 and then in 1986, but based on detailed case notes for a patient seen 1940–1941 and from 1953, and written between January and July 1955.Less

Volume 6 (1960–1963) is introduced with an essay by British adult and child analyst Angela Joyce, current chair of the Winnicott Trust. This volume contains one of Winnicott’s most important papers, ‘The Theory of the Parent-Infant Relationship’, along with papers on aggression, the false self, guilt, adolescence, time in psychoanalytic treatment, the capacity for concern, the value of dependence, fear of breakdown, and communicating and not communicating. It also includes Winnicott’s reassessment of Melanie Klein, a discussion of envy in a male patient, and a range of letters to colleagues and others.Less

Volume 11 of the Collected Works, with an introduction by the British analyst Professor Steven Groarke, consists of two books of Winnicott’s writings, Human Nature and The Piggle, both published posthumously. Human Nature gathers together Winnicott’s own teaching notes on the subject of human growth and development with other unpublished writings from this period. Winnicott reflects on the vast subject of human nature from his own experience, returning throughout to certain topics of continuing interest for him, including psyche-soma and the mind, health and ill health, the body and psychological disorder, psychosomatics and emotional development, health and the instincts, the depressive position, repression, hypochondria, the inner world, intellectual function, illusion, creativity, the environment in psychoanalysis, withdrawal, and regression. The second half of Volume 11 consists of the case history The Piggle: An Account of the Psychoanalytic Treatment of a Little Girl, in preparation by Winnicott at the end of his life but completed and published after his death. This book includes an introduction by Donald Winnicott, a preface by Clare Winnicott and the British analyst Ray Shepherd, and a foreword by the American analyst Ishak Ramzy, who corresponded with Winnicott and, with his help, prepared and edited the book for publication. The Piggle collects Winnicott’s records of sixteen consultations with a toddler-age child, Gabrielle, and an afterword by her parents. Volume 11 is introduced by the psychoanalyst and Professor of Social Thought, Steven Groarke.Less