ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the particular strains imposed on the therapist’s technique when working with children who are violent towards the therapist and the setting, or remove clothing during sessions. There are problems which must tax most child psychotherapists working with children who come from backgrounds of deprivation, violence and abuse. These children often use the most primitive modes of expression to communicate the nature of their experiences and, as M. Boston pointed out, this leads to very real problems of technique and management in the course of treatment. J. Sandler described the degeneration as the way in which an internal relationship between self and object becomes actualised in transference between patient and therapist. In the case of abused and deprived children, there are the additional risks of sliding into becoming identified with either abuser or abused. In the role of abuser this might mean making cruel interpretations, handling children rather too roughly, and ending sessions prematurely.
