An Independent Practitioner's Introduction to Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy

Deirdre Dowling was Head Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist at the Cassel Hospital, West London Mental Health Trust. She trained at the British Association of Psychotherapists, qualifying first as a child and adolescent psychotherapist in 1991, then as an adult psychotherapist in 2006. She worked at the British Psychotherapy Foundation for 5 years as Curriculum Lead of the Independent Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy Training and is also a teacher and supervisor.

Acknowledgements

Foreword Ann Horne & Monica Lanyado

Preface

Introduction

Part 1: Mapping the territory

Chapter 1 The therapeutic process

Chapter 2 Creating a therapeutic setting

Chapter 3 Making an assessment and starting the work

Chapter 4 Approaches to child psychotherapy with children of different ages

Chapter 5 Reflections on brief psychotherapy

Chapter 6 Engaging with parents

Chapter 7 Pleasures and challenges of working in a team

Part 2: Hard times: the challenges of child psychotherapy

Chapter 8 Facing despair, doubt and anger – and finding hope

Chapter 9 Learning from mistakes, losing my way and the value of supervision

Chapter 10 Working towards an ending

Part 3: Therapeutic work with children and parents in crisis

Chapter 11 Behind closed doors: therapeutic work with children and adolescents living with mentally ill and vulnerable parents

Chapter 12 Therapeutic work with children whose parents have separated or divorced

Part 4: Taking child psychotherapy outside the psychotherapy room

Chapter 13 New pathways: applying psychotherapy to other settings

Final thoughts: playing with ideas

Index