Brief Psychotherapy with Children: A Preliminary Report
ALAN J. ROSENTHAL M.D.1, and
SAUL V. LEVINE M.D.2
1 Assistant professor of psychiatry, Stanford University Medical Center, Stanford, Calif. 94305
2 Assistant professor of psychiatry, University of Toronto, and staff psychiatrist at the Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Ont., Canada
The authors present some of the results of their pilot study to test the efficacy of brief psychotherapy with 33 children with various disorders and to compare its usefulness with traditional, long-term psychotherapy with a control group of 35 children. More than half the experimental group were successfully treated and maintained their improvement over the one-year follow-up period. The authors also discuss criteria for the selection of subjects and techniques for treatment that may improve the rate of success achieved with brief psychotherapy.
