Change Processes in Child Psychotherapy: Revitalizing Treatment and Research

This groundbreaking work advances a developmental perspective on both the basic processes of therapeutic change and the classification of childhood problems, offering a novel approach to the search for effective treatments for children. Generating a new flow of ideas between clinical practice and empirical research, the volume revitalizes basic modalities such as psychodynamic, play, and cognitive therapies by identifying the core ingredients that enhance and retard the processes of change. The authors also demonstrate the limitations of utilizing diagnostic labels as the basis for assessing treatment efficacy, arguing instead for an integrative approach that links methods of intervention with a case-relevant analysis of the child's emotional, interpersonal, and cognitive development.

Stephen R. Shirk, Ph.D., is Director of the Child Study Center and Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Denver. He has authored a variety of papers on the role of developmental processes in child treatment, and has edited a volume on child therapy and development entitled Cognitive Development and Child Psychotherapy. The focus of his current research is on interpersonal processes in child psychotherapy and child psychopathology.

Robert L. Russell, Ph.D., is Professor of Psychology at Loyola University Chicago. He has authored numerous journal articles on psychotherapy process and outcome, and has edited special sections on psychotherapy research in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, Journal of Cognitive Psychotherapy, and Clinical Psychology Review. He has also edited two books, Language in Psychotherapy: Strategies of Discovery and Reassessing Psychotherapy Research. In 1989 he was awarded the Early Career Contribution Award by the Society for Psychotherapy Research. His current work focuses on discourse and narrative processes in child and adult psychotherapy and in the social adjustment of learning disabled and conduct disordered children.