This book uniquely addresses the application of CBT to children and young people within health, school and community contexts.

With the recent expansion of increasing access to psychological therapies (IAPT) CBT is increasingly applied to work with children outside the traditional therapy clinic. This book provides accessible knowledge and practice skills for professional staff working with troubled children and young people in real-world settings. Front-line practitioners commonly face children with complex patterns of difficulties that do not fit clear diagnostic categories. Moreover, long waiting lists and fixed lengths of treatment don't always fit the presenting needs. Correspondingly, the authors take a much-needed realistic approach to applying CBT to childhood problems.

At the center of this book is the child, the authors moving outwards to cover childhood itself, the principles, core practice and techniques of CBT and its adaptation to the context of the therapy. This is relevant and accessible reading for a wide range of specialist child trainees and practitioners, including new IAPT therapists, counselors, nurses, teachers and social workers.

Assessment and Formulation

Assessment and formulation

The Purpose of Assessment

The assessment information that needs to be gathered in order to develop a cognitive formulation will vary for each child, according to the nature and complexity of the child's difficulties and context. In general, the principle of parsimony needs to be applied to the assessment process, i.e. the assessment should only collect the information required to understand the problem sufficiently to develop an intervention plan (Creed, Reisweber, & Beck, 2011). A therapist who undertakes comprehensive assessments on all cases, including taking full developmental histories, may not be delivering an efficient service, as much of this information may not be relevant to make decisions about the type of intervention needed. The following sections will provide some guidance to ...

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