Working with young clients

I wrote this reflection for our pre-practicum class at the University of Rochester. The professor asked us to reflect on our readings regarding working with young clients.

   This week, I reflected on Chapter 13, “Interviewing and Working With Young Clients”, in Sommers-Flanagan & Sommers-Flanagan's (2015) Clinical Interviewing. Chapter 13 explained how working with children as clients can be completely different from working with adults. Counselors may be over- or under-attached to the child as a client, and it takes work to learn how to deal with a young client in the right way. Young clients are typically referred to therapy, too, so they may be resistant to the process and unsure why they are there. Young clients will often have a parent or caretaker involved in their therapy process, which makes the process more complex.

Chapter 13 reviews how a counselor can interview with a young client and what levels and types of engagement occur with their caregivers as well. The chapter emphasizes the importance of remaining focused on the child and trying to be warm and positive. You may need to offer them food or drink, toys, or dress and talk in cool ways to develop a rapport with the child. The child should feel like you are on their side and not a spy for the adults. A counselor uses various exercises with young clients, ranging from games like "If you had three wishes" and "What's good about you" to arts and crafts and play exercises, to gather more information about the child. The parents or caretakers of a child play a crucial role in therapy, and the chapter emphasizes the importance of remaining aligned with the child and non-reactive.

Young clients could be among the most difficult or the most rewarding. A young client may not want to be there or may struggle to communicate clearly. It seems that a lot of information received from a child is indirect, such as observing them play, their participation in games, and the art they create. How does a therapist conceptualize a young client with this indirect information?

Working with young clients can also be very rewarding. Seeing progress in short spans of time over an important developmental period. The therapist should be patient with the young client, playful, curious and creative. Play therapy is a key way to engage with a young client, instead of just language. A therapist to a young client must be able to interpret meaning from behaviors. Young clients also need less direct questioning and more positive reinforcement.