Psychotherapy in Children

Introduction:

Psychotherapy helps to eliminate or reduce troubling symptoms. Children and teens may have issues with how they feel, act, or learn. Psychotherapy helps the child to outgrow these problems by discussing their issues with a therapist and overcoming them with needed solutions. Psychological therapies can be one-on-one, with parents, in groups, a combination of therapies, or a combination of therapies and drugs.

What Are The Different Types Of Psychotherapy?

The different types of psychotherapy are as follows:

• Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT): This therapy aims at helping a child to understand and accept the emotions inside them. The therapists help children to understand the emotional struggles deep within them and carry them forward in a positive manner.

• Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT): This therapy helps to analyze the confused or disturbed patterns of thinking and aims to improve the child’s mood, behavior, and anxiety. The child is made to understand that thoughts create feelings and moods that can impact behavior. This is an effective method to treat various mental conditions including anxiety and depression. Special versions of this therapy can help children to overcome traumatic experiences. The therapist encourages the child to talk about their harmful thought patterns and teaches them to replace these with positive feelings and behaviors.

• Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT): Dialectical Behavioral Therapy is useful in older adolescents who have harmful thoughts, suicidal feelings or thoughts, or those with Borderline Personality Disorder. This therapy enables adolescents to take responsibility for their problems and teaches them to tackle negative emotions and conflicts. The therapy is carried out in individual or group sessions.

• Family Therapy: Family therapy involves examining the communication and support within the family and providing the necessary support and education positively. The therapy can be given as a family session which includes the child, siblings, parents, and grandparents. Couple therapy is a type of family therapy that focuses on marital issues between the couple.

• Group Therapy: This type of therapy is based on many patients being headed by one or more therapists. This enables the patients to understand their mental illness, improve socializing skills and increase interaction with others. Group therapy is effective in cases of substance abuse, socializing issues, parental support, and so on.

• Interpersonal Therapy (IPT): Interpersonal therapy is used to treat various mental conditions specifically depression. Difficulties at the individual level are interpreted in interpersonal terms and the problems are discussed.

• Mentalization-Based Therapy (MBT): This therapy focuses on children and teens to help them transform into healthy individuals.

• Parent Children Interaction Therapy (PCIT): In this therapy, parents interact with their children through coaching sessions, and therapists guide them on positive interactions between family members.

• Play Therapy: The therapists use various materials like toys, images, games, puppets, and dolls to help the child relate, identify and talk about their problems. The therapist observes how the child plays with the toys or other materials and identifies their thinking patterns. By combining talks with play, the therapist helps the child to overcome their conflicts.

• Psychodynamic Psychotherapy: Psychoanalysis is a type of specialized, intensive part of this therapy that involves multiple sessions in a week. The aim of this therapy is that the child’s behavior can be modified when their inner conflicts are exposed. It helps to identify the child’s response, defenses and struggles towards their inner conflicts.

• Supportive Therapy: Supportive therapy helps teens overcome stress, distinguish helpful from non-helpful behaviors and improve their self-esteem.

Why Do Kids And Teens Require Psychotherapy?

Kids and teens might require psychotherapy or counseling to overcome certain feelings, emotions, or behaviors when they are unable to handle it alone or if it is beyond their scope. Sometimes, an entire family might require psychotherapy sessions to communicate, learn, and set boundaries.

How Does Psychotherapy Work?

Psychotherapy in young kids involves talking, playing, drawing, and carrying out sessions with the family members to overcome the problem since children learn by doing. Psychotherapy in older kids and teens involves activities that enable them to learn the skills they require. They express their feelings and emotions which can help to resolve the issue. The therapist might include the parents or only the child based on the child’s age. They might also have separate sessions with the parents to teach them how to handle their kids at home. Psychotherapists encourage the children to believe and utilize their inner strengths and offer support and appreciation.

What Are the Signs That a Child Requires Psychotherapy?

The following are the signs shown by a child that signal to take help from a psychotherapist:

• Defiant Behaviors: This is the most common sign when a child begins to argue, complain, defend, or sulk even over small issues. This is the sign they exhibit when they need help without them being aware of it. Parents should stay connected with their child’s teachers and ask the teachers to let the parents know if they come across such behaviors in their child. The behavior should be addressed immediately especially if it occurs frequently.

• Sudden Deviations in Usual Behaviors and Habits: Day-to-day changes in the child’s interests or behaviors which can be identified easily such as changes in eating or sleeping habits and other interests should be observed. If these changes last for more than two weeks, then a therapist should be consulted.

• Being Too Worried or Sad: It is fine to be worried or sad once in a while but if it lasts long in a child such that it affects their daily activities then parents should identify the cause and take the help of a therapist.

• Regressive Behavior: It is common for kids to be stressed when a new sibling is born, or when parents separate. But if it happens for no reason then parents should address the situation. Regression signals that indicate the need for counseling include bedwetting in toilet-trained children, temper tantrums, separation anxiety, fearfulness, increased anxiety, and language regression (talking like a baby).

• Social Isolation: When a child withholds themselves from socializing with others especially when they are not shy and introverted, it might require attention. It is normal to have a sad day but when it happens often such that the child prefers to stay alone, refuses to play with their friends, and is unwilling to leave the home then parents might need to look into it.

• Talks About Self-Harm: This is the most important sign and if present in children it needs to be sorted out immediately. When a child feels hopeless, talks about, or displays activities of harming or hitting themselves then the child must be taken to a therapist as early as possible.

What Do Psychotherapists Help With?

Psychotherapists help kids and teens to overcome problems related to:

• Family, school, and health problems.

• Bullying.

Psychotherapists help with feelings like:

• Stress.

• Sadness and grief.

• Self-esteem.

• Anger.

Psychotherapists help with conditions like:

• Depression.

• Eating disorders.

• Self-injury.

• Trauma-related disorders.

• Depression.

• Obsessive-compulsive disorders (OCD) and anxiety.

• Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) - This is a condition affecting an individual’s behavior and making them restless and creating difficulty in concentration).

• Disruptive behavior disorders (disorders that affect the behavior of the individual).

How Long Does A Child Require Psychotherapy?

The period of psychotherapy depends on the severity and complexity of the issue. Based on this, it can vary from a few sessions a week to regular sessions over many years. Studies show that psychotherapy has a ‘sleeper effect’ which means that children under psychotherapy experience the positive benefits after many years.

What Happens In Psychotherapy Sessions?

The initial visit involves the therapist talking and understanding the child’s issues by asking questions and working out a counseling plan. During subsequent visits, the following happens:

• Talking: Talking helps to explain the child’s problems clearly. The therapist talks with the child in a friendly manner so that the child gains trust and feels comfortable. They also feel that there is someone to understand their struggles and hence it is easy for them to cooperate.

• Engage in Activities: The therapist engages the child in activities such as drawing, playing, and so on so that they learn how to cope and manage their feelings. Calm breathing techniques and mindfulness may be taught to manage stress.

• Learn New Skills: The therapist may engage the child in activities that can enable them to be patient such as standing in a queue, sharing, following instructions, overcoming failure, dealing with failure, and so on.

• Solve Problems: Older children and teens may be asked to share their problems at school and therapists help to work out a strategy to overcome these.

What Is the Role of Parents in Psychotherapy?

The role of parents is as follows:

• Identify the signs of distress in their child at the earliest.

• Finding a suitable psychotherapist with whom the child can be comfortable.

• Talking with the therapist and learning how to manage the kid at home.

• Spending more time with the child so that the child develops a healthy bond to discuss their problems openly with their parents.

• Being patient, calm, and showering love and affection, and making them gently understand their wrongdoings. Children must be appreciated and rewarded for their positive behaviors and efforts.

Conclusion:

Kids also require support at times to cope with their internal struggles. Treating mental health not only involves medications and hospitalization. Support from therapists can help the child overcome their inner struggles. Pediatricians (child specialists) offer good support to enable parents to distinguish between normal versus abnormal behaviors. Parents must understand that external support besides parental support can help their child overcome mental issues as psychotherapists are trained in approaching such issues.