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Five Decades of Children's Group Treatment—An Overview

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Journal of Child and Adolescent Group Therapy

Abstract

Given the propensity of children for peer-group involvement, group therapy has emerged over the past five decades as a clinically-valued intervention modality for many youths with mental health problems. With children who had been subject to physical or sexual abuse, it has even become an empirically-supported treatment of choice. After an overview of the most frequently used models of long- and short-term group therapy, lesser known approaches, such as psychoeducational, support, and parent groups, are depicted. Favorable outcome measures suggest that group methods are likely to play an increasingly important role in the healthcare field's current search for more pragmatic and cost-effective treatment measures. Further research needs to be based on more clearly delineated patient problems and on processes of change.

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Lomonaco, S., Scheidlinger, S. & Aronson, S. Five Decades of Children's Group Treatment—An Overview. Journal of Child and Adolescent Group Therapy 10, 77–96 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1009474606008

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