ABSTRACT
Despite the success of Fritz Redl and David Wineman's classic, The Aggressive Child, relatively few articles have appeared in the clinical literature describing the application of the "life space interview" and "behavior management" techniques developed by the authors at Pioneer House in Detroit in the late 1940s. The method consists of a series of interview strategies and behavior management techniques which are used to deal with the problems and "issues" that develop between a child and his physical and social environment. All of the human and physical resources of the residential treatment center are ordered in such a way as to produce a truly therapeutic environment which is both the primary means of treatment, as well as the context within which it takes place. It would seem time that those professionals interested and involved in residential treatment begin to develop models of intervention that would eventuate in a unified theory base for residential therapy.
