Introduction to child therapy - Ryst Flashcards
What are the common factors of good psychosocial therapy?
Create an alliance or partnership, have empathy, be non-judgmental, respect boundaries of the relationship and provide boundaries for child (safety important but otherwise they should feel free to be open), protect confidentiality. For children it is important to go to their level - be playful and creative.
What are the types of child therapy?
- Parent Training -Collaborative Problem Solving
- Behavior Therapy - helpful for kids under age 7, if older usually behavior and cognitive therapy used together
- Cognitive Therapy - Trauma-Focused CBT
- Psychodynamic Therapy
- Family Systems Therapy
Coaching parents and giving them new strategies is effective. What does this involve?
- Behavior monitoring
- Reinforcement
- Effective use of “time out” - one minute per year is a good rule of thumb
- Teaching parents how to play
What is the cognitive conceptualization of explosive/noncompliant behavior?
Traditional way of conceptualizing: oppositional/explosive behavior is the byproduct of inept (inconsistent, noncontingent) parenting; the child has learned that this behavior is effective at coercing adults to capitulate to his or her wishes.
What is a different perspective on the explosive/noncompliant behavior?
- The child is delayed in the development of the skills of flexibility/adaptability and frustration tolerance or has significant difficulty performing these skills when they are most necessary—ie, it is a learning disability.
- Framing the behaviors in this way leads to a totally different strategy in handling oppositional/explosive behavior.
Describe the cognitive pathways to oppositional and explosive behavior.
- First step is to identify the deficits in the particular child which leads to his/her inability to be adaptable and to tolerate frustration.
- Six categories of deficits:
Executive Skills
Language Processing Skills
Emotion Regulation Skills
Cognitive Flexibility Skills
Social Skills
Sensory/Motor Skills
What is the definition of a meltdown?
Happens when the cognitive demands being placed on a person outstrips his/her capacity to respond adaptively. It is important to understand the triggers and possible reinforcing behaviors of parents that lead to a meltdown because it can help prevent them.
What is collaborative problem solving?
- A model developed by Ross Greene to help teach explosive/inflexible children the skills they lack. (Book: The Explosive Child)
- It has three goals:
Reduce explosive outbursts (stabilize)
Pursue adult expectations
Teach lacking skills (flexibility and frustration tolerance.)
What are some adult approaches to problems/unmet expectations?
Basket A: Impose adult will (safety)
Basket B: Collaborative Problem Solving (work it out) - helps kids to know expectations, helps reduce outbursts and teaches skills
Basket C: Drop it (for now, at least) to prevent melt-downs.
Collaborative problem solving is the best way to deal with oppositional or explosive behavior. What are some steps?
1) Empathy (+ Reassurance)
2) Define the Problem
3) Invitation
What is the basis of cognitive-behavioral therapy?
Based on social learning theory:
- Assumption that a person’s environment, dispositional characteristics, and situational behavior all reciprocally determine each other
- Behavior is dynamic and evolving.
- Blend of techniques based on operant and classical conditioning.
- Belief that context influences behavior which in turn shapes context.
- Sometimes context is the most powerful and at other times personal preferences, disposition and characteristics determine behavior.
What are the five elements involved in psychological difficulties?
- physiology
- cognition
- behavior
- emotional function
- interpersonal/environmental context
All of these elements change and interact with each other. Intervening at the cognitive and behavioral levels allows you to influence thinking, acting, feelings and bodily reactions.
Describe how a child processes their environment.
- How children interpret their experiences shapes their emotional functioning.
- Children create schemata, “mental packages” about themselves, relationships, past experiences and the future
- Actively construct information rather than passively responding to environmental stimuli.
How you process things leads to what?
Cognitive products:
- Stream-of-consciousness, thoughts and images that are situation specific and pass through a person’s mind during mood shifts.
- Include “automatic thoughts”
What are automatic thoughts?
Thoughts based on core beliefs or internal schemata. Example If someone is rude or mean the automatic thought is, “he doesn’t like me” rather than “he’s in a bad mood” or “he’s having a bad day.”
