Eiatscyp congress in Belgrade in september 2017.

SUMMARY OF DR. KOCIJAN HERCIGONJA LECTURE

Prof.dr.sc. Dubravka Kocijan Hercigonja

Integration of psychotherapeutic approaches in the therapeutic process of children and adolescents

Summary

The aim of psychotherapy is to assist children and adolescents in organizing optimal development, taking into account the constitutional and maturation characteristics, as well as the characteristics of the environment. It is, thus, necessary to use different psychotherapeutic approaches depending on the specificity of the developmental phase, as well as the specificity of the problem, all modified by the child’s cognitive and developmental state. It is important to emphasize the need to modify therapeutic approaches from session to session, all depending on the observed behavior. An important issue in working with children and adolescents is how to achieve therapeutic alliance, how to modify the approach in a way that a child shows emotions, especially an abused child, as well as what is the child’s potential to change.

One of the problems in child and adolescent psychotherapy is the complexity of the transfer because the child lives with his / her own object as well as the environment that affects the transfer, and the therapist brings not only his professionalism, but also his personal child experiences to the relationship.

All this indicates the complexity and specificity of children’s psychotherapy and the necessity of not only knowing the children’s specificity in relation to the developmental stages, but also the knowledge of different therapeutic approaches that are incorporated into the therapeutic process, depending on the situation or the therapeutic process.

Keywords: Integrative Psychotherapy, Child Psychotherapy Specificity, Transfer and Counter-transfer