Without question, nearly all child psychotherapy has become more eclectic in recent years, because most good Clinicians agree that doctrinal purity doesn't get the job done. However flexible and savvy a particular therapist may be, though, he or she was trained somewhere, is a member of certain professional organizations, keep up with certain journals, and attend certain conference where papers are presented.
In other words, tribal affiliation does narrow the focus, and can't help affecting the tone of therapy.
Parents are also confused by the variety of types of practitioners available: therapists may be psychiatrists, psychplogists, or social workers. Regardless, they ought to have special training and experience in treating children and adolescents.
A psychiatrist in this field is an M.D. who has four years of medical school, one year of internship, at least two years of approved residency training in general psychiatry and a two-year fellowship in child and adolescent psychiatry that includes supervised experience in a range of therapies and settings.
A child analyst may or may not be a psychiatrist: he or she has been trained at a psychoanalytic institute, where the influence on mental illness of early life experiences is studies.
