Review of: Treatment of Childhood Disorders

Reviews the book, Treatment of childhood disorders edited by Eric J. Mash and Russell A. Barkley (see record 1989-97947-000). Like any collection of articles on various, but related topics, this book has its ups and downs. Fortunately there are far more "ups" than "downs" in the book, which make it a viable text for advanced courses in child psychopathology, or as a highly valuable reference for researchers or child therapists, regardless of personal orientation. The overall approach is from a behavioural-systems perspective. The book is comprised of 15 chapters divided into sections concerned with specific populations, i.e. Behaviour Disorders, Emotional and Social Disorders, Developmental Disorders, Health-Related Problems, Children at Risk, and Adolescent Problems. One concern I have is that there is only a very token coverage of ethics in treatment, and even that is phrased in terms more appropriate for general therapeutic issues with adults. With the exception of the chapters on enuresis and encopresis and the excellent discussion in the chapter on child abuse, there is virtually no discussion of the special ethical considerations necessary when working with children. In addition, for those of us who are not totally "up" on each of these fields and their major contributors, it would have been nice to have included brief biographical/professional sketches of the authors of each of the chapters. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)