ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines several constituents of therapists' theory of therapy and deals with the fact that they are working with children. Change for children is not a rare or complicated occurrence which requires the ministrations of highly trained professionals. There is a strand of thought about therapy which runs counter to the dominant American ideology of self-determination and control. Ever since S. Freud’s investigations of the experience of his individual patients led him to see the importance of childhood experiences, most patients in therapy have discussed their parents. Family therapy may need to be learned as an adjunct to any child work, not that one will always do family therapy, but because the family needs to be considered in all work with children. Parents need to recognize that their children are never going to give them everything they want. The children are defective when weighed against the grandiose desires for perfection which most parents have.
