Ryst: Intro to Child Therapy

Question 1

List some types of child therapy

Answer 1

parent training
behavior therapy
cognitive therapy
psychodynamic therapy
family systems therapy

Question 2

“Coaching” parents to learn new strategies of behavior monitoring, reinforcement, effective use of “time out,” and teaching parents how to play

Answer 2

parent training

Question 3

What is the traditional way of conceptualizing oppositional/explosive behavior in kids?

Answer 3

think of it as the byproduct of inept parenting, so the child thinks that this behavior is effective for coercing adults to capitulate to his or her wishes

Question 4

What is another way to look at oppositional/explosive behavior in kids?

Answer 4

consider that the child is delayed in development of the skills of flexibility/adaptability and frustration tolerance - the child has a learning disability

**framing the behaviors in this way leads to a totally different perspective when handling the behavior

Question 5

First step is to identify the deficits in the particular child which leads to his/her inability to be adaptable and to tolerate frustration. What are the six categories of deficits?

Answer 5

executive skills
language processing skills
emotional processing skills
cognitive flexibility skills
social skills
sensory/motor skills

Question 6

Happens when the cognitive demands being placed on a person outstrips his/her capacity to respond adaptively.

Answer 6

meltdown

Question 7

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.)

Answer 7

collaborative problem solving

Question 8

What are the 3 goals of collaborative problem solving?

Answer 8

1) reduce explosive outbursts (stabilize)
2) pursue adult expectations
3) teach lacking skills

Question 9

What are 3 adult approaches to problems/unmet expectations?

Answer 9

A: adult gets what they want (effective if there is safety issue)
B: collaborative problem solving (work it out) **the best
C: drop the issue to prevent melt-downs (doesn’t teach the child)

Question 10

3 ways that you can approach collaborative problem solving

Answer 10

1) empathy
2) define the problem
3) invitation

(ex: repeat the issue to let them know you heard them; “You want pizza” - define the problem “We will be late for our meeting, what can we do instead?”; invite to help compromise/collaborate)

Question 11

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.

Answer 11

Cognitive-behavioral therapy

Question 12

What are the 5 elements involved in psychological difficulties?

Answer 12

physiology
cognition
behavior
emotional functioning
interpersonal/environmental context

Question 13

Intervene at these two levels to influence thinking, acting, feelings and bodily reactions.

Answer 13

cognitive

behavioral

Question 14

Children create (blank), “mental packages” about themselves, relationships, past experiences and the future

Answer 14

schemata

Question 15

Do children actively construct info or passively respond to environmental stimuli?

Answer 15

actively construct information

Question 16

Stream-of-consciousness, thoughts and images that are situation specific and pass through a person’s mind during mood shifts.

Answer 16

cognitive products

Question 17

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.”

Answer 17

automatic thoughts

Question 18

Include cognitive distortions ex: focus on the negatives in a situation
Distortions transform incoming information through assimilation processes to maintain homeostasis so cognitive schemata stay intact
By product of cognitive schemata
Ex: Anxious child doing well on a test.

Answer 18

cognitive operations (processes)

Question 19

Represent core meaning structures that direct attention encoding and recall.
Drive cognitive products and operations
Reflect the most basic beliefs the individual holds
“The cognitive unit that will store experience in a form so faithful a person can recognize a past event.”

Answer 19

cognitive structure (schemata)

Question 20

Cognitive schemata are relatively inaccessible and often latent until activated by (blank).

Answer 20

stress

Question 21

Cognitive triad of depression

Answer 21

Explain unfavorable events through self critical view
Have a negative view of experiences/other people
Have a pessimistic view of the future

**this makes up the specific schemata of depression

Question 22

What are some differences in CBT between adults and children?

Answer 22

children usu aren’t the ones requesting treatment
children think and live in the here-and-now and require active/fun approaches
need to consider positive/negative reinforcement in kids
want to include parents
take developmental level into account
reinforcement is important

Question 23

Attempt to rectify distortions, provide new skills and opportunities to practice new skills.
Developmentally appropriate with children as they are constantly working to learn new skills anyway.
Needs to take considerations of the developmental age of child into account.

Answer 23

therapeutic approach

Question 24

Treatment strategy:

1. Define the (blank) and teach the child to recognize, label and self monitor physiologic and emotional cues
2. Teach (blank) skills
3. Cognitive (blank)
   Help child to identify his/her self talk (thought bubbles)
   Replace maladaptive cognitions with more adaptive ideas
   Attribution re-training
4. Practice with (blank)
5. Contingent (blank)
6. Modeling
7. Role playing

Answer 24

problem;
relaxation;
restructuring;
problem solving;
reinforcement

Question 25

What is symbolic modeling?
What is live modeling?
What is participant modeling?

Answer 25

watching a videotape of someone else;
directly observing another person coping w a difficult situation;
actively copying a model

Question 26

Is it more important to model how to handle errors or model success?

Answer 26

how to handle them!

Question 27

Help child to identify his/her self talk (thought bubbles)
Replace maladaptive cognitions with more adaptive ideas
Attribution re-training

Answer 27

cognitive restructuring

Question 28

(blank) approach examines distortions or deficiencies;
(blank) approach examines environmental experiences for limited learning experiences or potential pathological experiences

Answer 28

cognitive; behavioral

Question 29

Assessing cognitive variables involves assessing these three categories

Answer 29

automatic thoughts
core schemata
cognitive distortions

Question 30

Assessing behavioral variables includes these three aspects

Answer 30

antecedents
behavior
consequences

Question 31

Play is a vehicle of formulating symbolic representations of implicit meanings. It is a “window” into unconscious meanings. Play is a compromise between frustrated wishes and prohibitions.
Repetition in the service of mastery
Turning passive experiences into active control
A way to find other solutions to unresolved conflicts.
Communication with a partner
Wish fulfillment
Reworking of past difficulties
Reconstruction of the past into a different (? More positive) framework

Answer 31

Some suggested meanings and purposes of play

Question 32

Theoretical perspective that views the individual as inseparable from their family context.
Family systems, like all systems, tend towards homeostasis. That means that change in one individual will have effects throughout the system, and the system will resist that change.

Answer 32

family systems therapy

Question 33

T/F: The therapeutic use of play is extraordinarily powerful as it represents the natural medium through which humans learn and construct meaning from experience

Answer 33

True