h psychiatrically disturbed parents, the number is even higher." For these children, treatment is necessary, but it must be treatment that is designed for their unique needs, not simply a version of adult therapeutic techniques.
Larry B. Golden is a proponent for children and adolescents of what is known as "brief therapy," in which "the counselor provides the minimum assistance necessary to alleviate the client's symptoms." His collection of case studies includes some very short therapies but also encompasses one that lasted more than seven years; Golden suggests that "time-efficient" may actually be a more accurate term for the kind of therapeutic intervention his book illustrates for working with clients as young as 4 years old and as old as age 17. The time-effectiveness of the cases recounted and the young age of the patients studied are the common themes of the book.
Yet, while it is not explicitly stated, Golden has a deeper purpose in anthologizing these accounts. While theorists as diverse as Freud, Erikson, and Piaget have speculated on the precise nature of the stages of personality development, they all agree that childhood and adolescence mark a period of growth on the way to becoming an adult, however flawed and dysfunctional that individual may be. Childhood and adolescence are distinct states, sharing some commonalities with adulthood but remaining separate. Golden, in this collection of case studies, illustrates this separateness quite effectively. As with adult patients, the best therapists employ a range of psychological techniques, depending on the client's specific needs. In Golden's examples, therapists working with young clients need to be especially receptive to the stage of their client's development and willing to adapt methods to the appropriate age level as well as to the client's particular problems.
R. Murray Thomas argues, "Counseling people at different stages of the life span deriv...