Adolescent psychotherapy: An introduction

Adolescent psychotherapy has only recently taken hold as distinct from either child or adult psychotherapy. This new recognition was born of necessity as practitioners saw that theories and techniques developed for treating children and adults were far less effective for treating adolescents. As necessity is often the mother of invention, new models for treating adolescents have emerged. While these models differ in many respects, they share three characteristics: the unique features of adolescents, psychotherapists requiring specialized knowledge and skills, and the need for adolescent psychotherapy to involve the broader systemic context of the adolescent's life. The articles in this issue of In Session: Journal of Clinical Psychology insist that practitioners recognize and challenge their assumptions about how psychotherapy with adolescents should be conducted. The articles highlight the need for specialized training, the scarcity of evidenced-based research, and the ethical dilemmas that frequently occur when working with this population. (C) 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.