Relational Child Psychotherapy is a sophisticated practical guide for child therapists. Child psychotherapists practicing today are faced with the challenge of developing a coherent theory and technique while drawing on a number of diverse traditions as disparate as psychoanalysis, behaviour therapy and family systems therapy. This diversity presents child therapists with a rich heritage, but it also presents a formidable complexity to integrate the best of what they offer in their therapeutic work. This book develops such and integration, offering a rich overview of issues currently being addressed by clinicians and theoreticians, exploring various relational models and their implications for treatment. The authors bring to light the critical issues of clinical practice with children, and offer powerful new models for child psychotherapists. The problems and strategies for approaching the clinical relationships between child and therapist, as well as that between parent and therapist, are examined in depth. The authors also explore the clinical setting versus the role of the therapist in the extra-clinical context of a child's life, the therapeutic aspects of play, and the unique behaviors of children manifested in the therapeutic environment. --- from the publisher Critical Acclaim: "The relational and the developmental point of view have never been brought together in an adequate way. This up-to-date scholarly, yet practical, integration opens a new vista within relational psychoanalysis and pioneers a fresh approach in the psychoanalytic treatment of children and adolescents. It is a work of great and lasting value to the field."
–Peter Fonagy | 
