Parents’ Guide to the Therapeutic Process with Children – Part 1: The Rationale for this Guide

Why write a series of posts about the psychotherapeutic process with children?

Most parents I meet have vitally important questions about psychotherapy with children and in particular their child.  What can they expect? How does the process work?  Why and in what ways does it help? When they consider entrusting their precious child to my care, they appropriately, responsibly want to know more about me in conjunction with how I understand the therapeutic process with their child and my role in it.

They have sensible and well-founded questions, in part, because providers who offer psychotherapeutic services to children often have a wide range of background experiences and understandings of child therapy, how it works and what matters.

This series of posts stems from my thought that parents who are interested may find it of value to hear from me as a practitioner:  how do I think about and answer the questions that they so rightfully ask?  My hope is that these posts may provide parents and others with some guideposts about what to expect and how to think about the process.

Here is a list of six post topics that I hope will shed light on the process of  the psychotherapy of children, each with a specific focus.

• Why do parents call a therapist?
• What are the touchstone principles that guide the work?
• What should parents expect of their relationship with the therapist?
• What are keys to getting off to a good start with a child?
• What constitutes a psychological evaluation, and what are the range of  recommendations that would likely follow from an evaluation?
• What happens in a child therapy session?

The work with children is so vitally important, and there is so much for us to think about together – like the role of play, making interpretive remarks to children, confidentiality in communications, evaluating suicide risk, issues about limit setting and discipline, TV and computer screens, learning problems and working with schools – the list goes on.  This series of posts will give you some sense of  how I view the therapeutic process with children and my role in it.

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I invite you not only to read my posts but to leave comments. Let me know what you think. Also what issues interest you?  What are your questions?  I will do my best to respond in a timely way.  Please don’t dismiss my requests. I really mean what I am saying!  Please offer your thoughts and questions.