Psychotherapy approaches for treating children include:

• Psychodynamic therapy, which uses play as a way to understand the child's anxieties and conflicts.
  • Play therapy, where the therapist uses the meanings of a child’s play as a medium for understanding and communicating with them.
• Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT), which addresses the central role of children’s cognitions in the development and maintenance of childhood disorders.
• Family Therapy, which focuses on the interactions between family members and seeks to improve the functioning of the family as a unit.

2) What is the aim of psychodynamic child therapy?

The aim of psychodynamic child therapy is the developmental advancement of children whose symptoms are seen as an indication of a failure to progress socially, cognitively, or emotionally. It aims to help children establish a relationship with a therapist that is meaningful, and to extend the child’s capacity to represent mental states coherently. It can help children understand themselves and others better, and gain more control over relationships.

3) What is the goal of parent work in therapy with children?

The goal of parent work in therapy with children is to help parents understand their child’s thoughts and feelings. Parental involvement was not always considered important in psychodynamic child therapy, but now parents are seen as an integral part of the treatment process, with the goal of changing ongoing patterns of interaction and relatedness. Parents may be involved as facilitators, co-therapists, or as clients receiving treatment.

4) What is interpersonal psychotherapy with adolescents?

Interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT) with adolescents focuses on addressing common interpersonal difficulties experienced by adolescents, including challenges associated with autonomy from parents, relationships with peers, and managing the loss of significant relationships. It attempts to identify interpersonal factors that are associated with the cause and maintenance of depressive episodes, gathering information about the adolescent’s relationships, their expectations, whether these expectations are being met, goals for the relationships, and how they have tried to accomplish these goals. It pays particular attention to separations and losses, conflict, changes in roles, interpersonal deficits and difficulties encountered in single-parent families.

5) Name the three treatments which have been developed for conduct disordered adolescents? Describe the different approaches used for treatment of conduct disordered adolescents?

Three treatments developed for conduct-disordered adolescents are:

• Anger control training with stress inoculation, which teaches youth a variety of coping strategies for reducing angry arousal.
• Family therapy, which addresses patterns of family interaction that maintain problem behaviours.
• Multisystemic therapy (MST), which aims at restructuring multiple levels of the youth’s environment to promote pro-social functioning.

Approaches used to treat conduct disordered adolescents include:

• Anger control training with stress inoculation that helps youth identify anger provocation cues, suppress immediate responses with self-instructions, modulate arousal, and consider the consequences of aggressive behaviour.
• Functional family therapy that targets patterns of family interaction which reinforce problem behaviours.
• Multisystemic therapy (MST), which is a comprehensive approach that addresses multiple levels of the youth’s environment.

6) What is functional family therapy?

Functional family therapy is based on the idea that aggressive and disruptive behaviours are maintained through patterns of family interaction that unintentionally reinforce problem behaviours while failing to reward pro-social behaviours. It draws on social learning formulations of noncompliance and aggressive behaviour, targeting patterns of family interaction that reinforce problem behaviours.

7) Discuss in detail the different developmental changes during adolescence?

During adolescence, a range of physical, social, cognitive, and emotional changes occur. These include:

• Puberty.
• The emergence of formal operational thought.
• The emergence of an adult identity.
• Increasing emphasis on relationships with peers.
• Decreasing reliance on parents for guidance and support.
• The establishment of vocational goals.
• The emergence of sexual interests.
• The consolidation of values, standards, and tacit beliefs. Adolescents may also be more prone to distrust adults, including therapists. They often struggle with issues of autonomy and independence.

8) Write about the psychotherapeutic approaches used for treating depression in adolescents?

Psychotherapeutic approaches used for treating depression in adolescents include:

• Cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT). Specific CBT interventions for depression include: developing therapeutic rapport; developing a shared problem list; mood monitoring; pleasurable events scheduling; mastery activities scheduling; rational problem-solving; realistic counter-thoughts; addressing social withdrawal; improving family communication; assertiveness training and relapse prevention.
• Interpersonal psychotherapy for adolescents (IPT-A).

Both CBT and IPT appear to be effective in alleviating symptoms of depression among youth.

9) What are the ways in which anxiety could be treated in adolescents?

Anxiety in adolescents can be treated using:

• Behavioural psychotherapy.
• Cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT).
  • CBT helps to alleviate anxiety by teaching adolescents to monitor their moods, anticipate situations in which they are likely to become anxious, identify specific distressing thoughts, and respond to these cues by using cognitive and behavioural coping strategies. Techniques such as exposure and desensitisation, relaxation training, guided imagery, rehearsal of adaptive self-statements, and encouragement of adaptive coping attempts are frequently used. CBT has been found effective for treating various anxiety disorders, including school phobia, overanxious disorder, specific phobia, panic disorder, social anxiety, generalised anxiety, and obsessive-compulsive disorder.