ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the skills of therapeutic work with children of different ages. The psychotherapist working with parents and infants helps parents reflect on difficulties in their relationship with their baby, working towards developing a secure attachment in these early months. Toddlers, as they begin to emotionally separate from their parents can become challenging. Child psychotherapists can help parents understand their toddlers through observing and discussing their play and behaviour in joint sessions. Individual play-based psychotherapy may also be offered to children, three to five years old, who have emotional or behavioural difficulties. Children in latency, between five to nine years, begin to develop a life outside the family. Therapeutic skills are discussed that will help the child psychotherapist working with troubled children of this age, who may express their difficulties in play and behaviour, but are highly resistant to facing these painful feelings directly. Adolescents are in a turbulent period of their lives dealing with physical, emotional and social change, and can appreciate the value of psychotherapy to reflect on their lives. Yet they can be challenging for the psychotherapist who needs to work with their ambivalence about accepting help at a time of increasing independence.
