Task-focused therapy with children and families

Task-focused psychotherapy for children relies on Piaget's formulations of children's learning through concrete exchanges in the environment. The therapeutic task is designed to embody the child's conflict and to permit therapist and child to share experiences which aid the child in finding a new behavioral and/or conceptual resolution. Children's conflicts are seen as maintained by continuing interactions on the part of the family which allow, foster orperpetuate the troublesome behavior or painful concept of the child. The task-focused model enhances the ability of parents to be enlisted as allies in the process of change. As the therapist tells the parents of the child's struggles with a particular issue/task, the parents can more readily understand the way in which the child's problem relates to a central issue within the family, the parenting or marital system, or the parents' self-image.