The therapist's use of self and cultures in children's psychotherapy groups

This paper presents a model for understanding decisions that a therapist makes concerning the use of the self as a therapeutic tool in children's psychotherapy groups. The parameters within which a therapist uses self is directly related to the development of the group's culture. It is proposed that two complementary cultures develop within children's groups, one, indigenous peer culture, strictly of the children's making and the other, therapeutic group culture, created by the therapist in collaboration with group members. Having taken the time to learn a group's indigenous peer culture the therapist can use its metaphors to speak to the children in their own language; eventually it will be possible to engage them in collaboratively building a meaning system which is uniquely designed to address their psychotherapeutic needs. Initially, when indigenous peer culture is predominant, the therapist uses self more receptively in order to connect with the children through empathic immersion, holding intolerable affects and developmental time travel; as treatment progresses and a therapeutic group culture is slowly constructed, the therapist may use him/her self for more change directed interventions through role modeling, confrontation and self disclosure.Chief Psychologist and Coordinator, Children's Clinical Services, Brookline Community Mental Health Center and Instructor, Psychiatry (Psychology), Harvard Medical School and private practice in Brookline and Newton Massachusetts.