ABSTRACT
Therapy techniques for problem young people have been improving over the years. Many ideas that caused consistent failure have been discarded, and new strategies have led to more success. The author reviews the ideas that handicapped therapists of young people, particularly those defined as schizophrenic, and which have been abandoned, at least by therapists who learn from experience. Psychodynamic theory tends to encourage a therapist to be an exploring consultant to the family rather than someone involved in giving directives and getting changes to happen. The chief merit of a systems theory is that it makes certain happenings predictable. The chief demerit of the theory for therapeutic purposes is that it is not a theory of change but a theory of stability. Family therapy, the attempt to change families, developed within a theory of how a family remains the same.
