Child Psychotherapy Process Research

Abstract

Reviews the 50-yr history of research on child psychotherapy process. The literature reviewed mainly concerns empirical research on what actually transpires between therapist and child during their face-to-face meetings. The authors restrict their review to what they (S. Shirk and R. Russell, 1996) have defined previously as psychotherapy, not behavior therapy, research. The authors' aim is to review empirical investigations of those therapies that give prominence to internal, psychological processes in their theories of pathogenesis and in their attempts to define targets of intervention. These therapies would be psychodynamic, client-centered, cognitive, and cognitive-behavioral. The main interest was to compile and summarize the research record over the past 50 yrs as it pertains to key emotional, interpersonal, and language/cognitive processes as they have been studied across types of therapy. The authors conclude their review of the substantive findings with summaries of the major methodological flaws found in the literature and present a set of recommendations for future research on child psychotherapy process. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)