ABSTRACT
The problem can be vividly illustrated by considering the question of treatment in its narrowest, psychotherapeutic sense. It has been estimated that, in the average local education authority hostel, less than 1 per cent of the children in that type of setting will require long-term intensive psychotherapy. Children, and even more so, adolescents, tend to act out their problems and difficulties in real life situations rather than to verbalize such difficulties in the way which many adults do. One has only to observe the normal maturation and emotional and social growth of any child to recognize the gradual transition from external to internalized discipline. It seems remarkable, therefore, to suggest that we should deny this same basic requirement to disturbed children in a residential setting, especially since, for a variety of reasons and in different ways, the great majority of such children will have lacked — in part or in full — this essential part of life experience.
