Principle-Guided Psychotherapy for Children and Adolescents

Book excerpt: Presenting a fresh approach to child and adolescent therapy, this book identifies five principles at the heart of the most potent evidence-based treatments--and shows how to apply them. Clinicians learn efficient, engaging ways to teach the skills of Feeling Calm, Increasing Motivation, Repairing Thoughts, Solving Problems, and Trying the Opposite (FIRST) to 5- to 15-year-olds and their parents. FIRST principles can be used flexibly and strategically in treatment of problems including anxiety, posttraumatic stress, depression, and misconduct. In a convenient large-size format, the book features 37 reproducible parent handouts, decision trees, and other clinical tools. Purchasers get access to a companion website where they can download and print these materials, plus Spanish-language versions of selected parent handouts.