Psychological Treatment Approaches for Young Children and Their Families

Early childhood is the most critical phase in human development. Negative influences can contribute to irreversible life-long struggles. What is learned in the first five years of life becomes the foundation for subsequent learning. It is vitally important that we effectively treat mental health problems when we find them in preschoolers.

Psychological Treatment Approaches for Children and Their Families provides a comprehensive overview of 14 commonly available therapeutic interventions for children aged 3-5 years. It fills an important gap in a field where information about treatment options is limited compared with those suitable for older children and adolescents.

The interventions presented are evidence-based and reflect various research backgrounds and theories of change. They are grouped into four sections covering individual child treatments, parent-focused approaches, dyadic carer-child interventions, and family-systems models. Each section describes the models in a condensed yet comprehensive summary, offering information on its evidence base, key concepts, stages of therapy, session structure, treatment effects, and training options, along with a case study example illustrating the therapy in practice.

The structure allows the reader to decide what treatments can be used for what presenting problem and under what conditions. A set of exercise questions concludes the end of each chapter to encourage better theory-practice links. The result is a text that provides ample opportunities for students and therapists to develop a knowledge base and understanding of how to best approach the treatment of psychological disorders in this age group.

Edited and authored by a select group of experienced clinical psychologists and psychiatrists with a particular interest in paediatric clinical psychology, this text is relevant for students, therapists, trainers and supervisors, referrers, researchers, and funding bodies, as well as all those undergoing training in disciplines related to child development and clinical child psychology.

The Interventions reviewed are: Play Therapy Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) Circle of Security (COS) Tuning into Kids (TIK) Positive Parenting Program (Triple P) Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) Child-Parent Psychotherapy (CPP) Integrated Family Intervention for Child Conduct Problems (IFI) Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy (DDP) Watch, Wait, and Wonder (WWW) Narrative Therapy (NT) Strategic Family Therapy (SRFT) Structural Family Therapy (SFT) Psychodynamic Therapy (PDT)