From Kendall et al. “Effectively Engaging and Collaborating with Children and Adolescents in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Sessions”
I found the article to be very interesting. Therapeutic alliance is a core tenet of CBT, but the authors here pose that actually “alliance” and trust may actually even be more critical in CBT for the children and adolescence population since they aren’t active agents initially in the therapy (eg intake process). Parallels exist with general CBT, but the authors specifically mention the important roles of parents as “consultants” collaborators” or “co-clients.” I was questioning the specifics here myself in terms of whether parents work in-session with children or separately, and how that typically plays out… For example, I was aware that In TF-CBT, the sessions are very structured, 60-90 minutes split between child and parent.
I appreciated the authors’ cautions/clear understanding of the limitations that exist in this model regarding goal setting when working with children since they are well…children with reasonably more limited attention spans etc. You will have to be patient and re-direct when needed… especially when working with children with ADHD/OCD/Anxiety…etc. The idea of working with rewards as positive reinforcement for “task completion” is not novel obviously but makes sense and with repetition and consistency certainly works. I also appreciated the realities of dealing with the added systemic layer of parents as a clients which I have often thought about too in future work settings.
Very interesting!