ABSTRACT
There are various approaches to managing this situation and some of them come from the strategic school of family therapy (Point 62). One such approach would be to congratulate the child for showing his or her dif®culties in the session. Clearly, such behaviour is an invitation for the therapist to explore how different or similar what is being shown is to what happens at home. The therapist also ought to be able to ®nd a way of talking to the child about its behaviour so that the child feels included in the discussion. Systemically, the therapist might ask the child's parents how they handle this kind of behaviour and might even invite them to do what they would normally do at home: `I notice that Gemma is playing on her own as we talk here and she is getting more and more angry about something. When she throws things around like this at home what do you do?. . . . Could you try that now to see if you can help Gemma get more in control of herself please? '
