Principles & Techniques Child Therapy

Catalog description

This course is designed to help the student appreciate the special nature of child psychotherapy. The course will explore a variety of therapeutic orientations including the psychodynamic, family systems, cognitive-behavioral and narrative approaches. Students will be expected to provide a critical analysis of the literature as well as be willing to explore their own personal views and beliefs. The course will teach the student to assess children for treatment and to arrive at a working diagnosis. The multifaceted issues of ethnicity and culture will also be examined as will issues of divorce, loss of caretakers and domestic abuse. The student will be expected to become familiar with both research and clinical literature as it relates to psychotherapy with children and to produce a scholarly research project. Lectures, movies and classroom activities will all be part of the educational experience.