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in a "good" home, becomes explicable, but brings to the surface
a whole host of buried difficulties.
There is always an explanation for the disturbed behaviour
of children; the aim of treatment is to elucidate the problem and
help the people concerned to understand their contribution to
the family difficulties and to acquire a new attitude to one another.
It will be obvious that even in the most favourable cases this is a
slow and laborious business. Both the adults and the children
are being asked to talk about matters which they find extremely
painful, or topics which for various reasons they have kept secret.
Few patients, whether adults or children, will embark on these
matters until they have built up a relationship and gained a sense
of trust in the person to whom they are being asked to give their
confidence.
Methods of Treatment.
There is no one prescribed type of treatment applicable to all
Child Guidance cases. Just as maladjustment is not synonymous
with mental illness so " readjustment " is not synonymous with
psychiatric treatment. Treatment can be said to begin with the
referral to the Child Guidance Clinic. Sometimes the fact that
the family is being brought to focus on the problem is enough to
solve it. In others the fact that the difficult child and his mother
are coming to the clinic plays the biggest part. That there is
one day each week where the child and his mother go out together
for a special occasion gives both a new attitude. On other cases
" advice " has to be given to the mother. A rule in Child Guidance
Clinics is to avoid direct advice but to leave the mother (parents)
to reach her (their) own conclusions, e.g., an intelligent mother
brought James, her 6-year-old only child, complaining that he
would not mix with others. As her story unfolded she explained
that the father had never allowed James to visit other children's
homes or to invite boys to his own house. Urged to develop this
point, she suddenly said, "Of course, I see that as he'd never
met any children before going to school, school must have been
an awful shock to him—he ought to get to know a few children
outside school." vShe there and then decided that she would
tackle the father to allow a limited amount of social intercourse
at times when the children would not be in his way. This was
her own spontaneous decision. What the clinic had done was to help
her to formulate the problem for herself. Fear of her difficult
husband had prevented her seeing it before, but she now saw
for herself that the husband was being unfair to the child, and
gained the strength to stand up for a view opposed to his. Later
she went on to say that James was bullied and attacked by his
school fellows, and she "did not like" to tell him to hit back
as she was a Christian Pacifist. This attitude was discussed with