Cognitive Therapy Techniques for Children and Adolescents: Tools for Enhancing Practice

Providing a wealth of practical interventions and activities - all organised within a state-of-the-art modular framework - this invaluable book helps child clinicians expand their cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) toolkits.

Going beyond the basics, the authors provide effective ways to engage hard-to-reach clients, address challenging problems, and target particular cognitive and behavioural skills. Fun and productive games, crafts, and other activities are described in step-by-step detail.

More than 30 reproducible forms and handouts can be downloaded and printed in a convenient 8 1/2 x 11 size.

This practical book will be helpful for therapists working with children and adolescents, including child psychologists and psychiatrists, social workers, and counsellors.

See also the authors' authoritative introduction to CBT with young patients, Clinical Practice of Cognitive Therapy with Children and Adolescents, Second Edition: The Nuts and Bolts.

""All child therapists should have this book on their shelves. It is written in a candid, user-friendly manner, and is filled with useful resources, such as rating scales that help to capture and quantify the diversity of symptoms in youth, useful downloadable forms, and sample therapist-client dialogues. The information on psychoeducational resources for children and their parents is comprehensive and well organized. The book has a nice balance between the theory of cognitive and behavioral interventions and the practical techniques needed to actually conduct the therapy."
- Craig L. Donnelly, MD, Chief, Section of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry; Director, Pediatric Psychopharmacology, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center

"Clearly articulated techniques are illustrated with activities and vignettes that make them come alive. This is one of the few books that address the process of cognitive-behavioral therapy with children, including how to implement the techniques in the context of the child-therapist relationship. I highly recommend this book for graduate courses in child psychotherapy and for practicing professionals seeking creative therapeutic activities and helpful assessment measures to implement with children."
- Elizabeth A. Gosch, PhD, ABPP, Director, MS Program in Counseling and Clinical Health Psychology, Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine

"Over the years, Friedberg and his colleagues have filled a gaping hole in the cognitive-behavioral therapy literature by writing innovative and useful guides for child and adolescent therapists. This book is packed with creative, witty, and practical methods, including some that use technologies, like text messaging, that younger clients are likely to favor. The authors helpfully organize the techniques by their purpose and highlight the client ages and clinical problems best served by each. This is one of those rare books that therapists can open at any page to find creative ideas that are immediately useful. If you work with children, adolescents, or families, keep this book on your desk; I predict it will become your most well-thumbed reference."
- Christine A. Padesky, PhD, Co-Founder Center for Cognitive Therapy, Huntington Beach, California

"Unlike a 'one-size-fits-all' manual, this book uses a modular approach that illustrates creative, flexible, and empirically supported techniques. This book will change the way you think about cognitive therapy with children, adding a sense of interest, excitement, and playfulness that is too often absent from the literature. There are very few 'how-to' guides in this area and fewer still that are rooted in research evidence and a genuine understanding of cognitive-behavioral theory. Both new and seasoned clinicians will find clear presentations of technique and refreshingly new and appealing approaches to meeting kids' therapy needs."
- Ellen Flannery-Schroeder, PhD, ABPP, Director, Clinical Psychology Program, Department of Psychology, University of Rhode Island