Cognitive Development and Child Psychotherapy

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xv

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2. Introduction

   1. Introduction

      • Stephen R. Shirk

      Pages 1-16

3. Cognitive Aspects

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 17-17

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   2. A Cognitive-Developmental Account of Storytelling in Child Psychotherapy

      • Robert L. Russell, Paul van den Broek

      Pages 19-52

   3. Causal Reasoning and Children’s Comprehension of Therapeutic Interpretations

      • Stephen R. Shirk

      Pages 53-89

   4. A Cognitive-Developmental View of Emotional Understanding and Its Implications for Child Psychotherapy

      • Ellen D. Nannis

      Pages 91-115

4. Aspects of Self

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 117-117

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   2. Developmental and Dynamic Changes in the Nature of the Self-Concept

      • Susan Harter

      Pages 119-160

   3. Psychotherapeutic Implications of the Development of Self-Understanding

      • Mira Zamansky Schorin, Daniel Hart

      Pages 161-186

   4. Cognitive Therapy of Childhood Depression

      • Robert L. Leahy

      Pages 187-204

5. Interpersonal Aspects

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 205-205

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   2. Interpersonal Thought and Action in the Case of a Troubled Early Adolescent

      • Robert L. Selman, Lynn Hickey Schultz

      Pages 207-246

   3. The Clinicial Implications of Children’s Conceptions of Social Relationships

      • Karen Linn Bierman

      Pages 247-272

   4. The Theory of Biography and Transformation

      • Gil G. Noam

      Pages 273-317

   5. Conclusion

      • Stephen R. Shirk

      Pages 319-331

6. Back Matter

   Pages 333-344

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Like hiking off the well-traveled trail, attempting to bridge foreign do­ mains of research and practice entails certain risks. This volume repre­ sents an effort to explore the relatively uncharted territory of cognitive and social-cognitive processes embedded in child psychotherapy. The territory is largely uncharted, not because of a lack of interest in children and cognition, but because child psychotherapy has been chronically neglected by clinical researchers. For example, recent meta-analyses of the effectiveness of child psychotherapy draw on less than 30 non­ behavioral studies of child psychotherapy conducted over a 30-year period. The average of one study per year pales in comparison to the volume of research on adult psychotherapy. Moreover, research exam­ ining cognitive, affective, and language processes in child psycho­ therapy is virtually nonexistent. Consequently, the contributions to this volume should not be seen as reviews of an extant, clinical-research literature. Instead, they represent attempts to expand the more familiar and well-researched province of developmental psychology into the rel­ atively uncharted domain of child psychotherapy process. In addition to bridging the literature on child psychotherapy with research perspectives on children's cognitive and social-cognitive devel­ opment, this volume attempts to cross a second gap. Recent surveys of the utilization of psychotherapy research by practicing psychotherapists indicate the distance between these two domains is substantial. Only a small minority of practitioners find psychotherapy research to be a useful source of information for their practice.

• cognition
• development
• developmental psychology
• language
• psychology
• psychotherapy
• therapy

• University of Denver, Denver, USA

  Stephen R. Shirk

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