ABSTRACT
The past decade has seen an astonishing proliferation of self-help material for pediatric mental health and physical health conditions through books, videos, and the Internet. More than at any point in history, self-help (or self-administered) interventions are now aggressively promoted to consumers for a broad range of health conditions and disorders. There is good reason for optimism that this trend will benefit children. Self-help circumvents barriers to traditional delivery models of health care. Self-help is convenient and inexpensive to families at a time that health care treatments are punitively costly. Moreover, self-help may work as effectively as therapist-based care to treat some childhood disorders.
