In Defense of Child Therapy

Traditional child dyadic psychotherapy can be viewed from a family systems point of view. Seen in this light it shows itself to have powerful family systems effects. These are often therapeutically effective, although unintended. The deliberate identification of the child as “sick” and the choice of an intervention format that avoids direct dealing with the rest of the family may make change possible where it might otherwise not have occurred. Child psychotherapy is shown to have important elements in common with recently developed symptom oriented treatment methods.