Some Child & Adolescent psychotherapists will have experience of working in medical healthcare settings as part of their training and others will learn on the job in their qualified life. However, due to the intensity and focused nature of the core training, Child & Adolescents Psychotherapists are in a good position to transfer their core skills to a variety of settings. The rigorous core training that they undertake allows them to refer to a frame of work that can also be applied to paediatric healthcare settings.
Child & Adolescent Psychotherapists have a core training consisting of a two-year pre-clinical course and a four-year clinical training. Child & Adolescent Psychotherapists have extensive knowledge of child development and infant mental health. As part of the two-year pre-clinical course students carry out a two-year infant observation consisting of weekly one-hour home visits .Thus Child & Adolescent Psychotherapists have the experience of following a child’s development closely during early infancy. Similarly, during the pre-clinical course students do a one hour a week observation of a young child (3-5 years of age) for a period of a year in a nursery setting or at the family home. During the clinical training Child & Adolescent psychotherapists work in Child and Adolescent Mental Health settings for the whole duration of the training. Hence their clinical training also means intense exposure to young people aged 0-25 years of age.
The training of Child Psychotherapists at the core of which is their own intense psychotherapy enhances their capacity to meet and bear the intensity of the negative feelings. This is an important skill for the work in paediatric hospital settings where the containment of distressing feelings is a crucial part of the work - with the parents as much as with the patient.
Psychoanalytically trained clinicians, including Child & Adolescent Psychotherapists, have a strong tradition and interest in working with the connections between the mind and the body since the late 19th century. Psychoanalysis has greatly developed over the years with psychosomatics being one of its areas of scientific interest. Also, psychoanalytic theory and praxis continues to be interested in the workings of the mind and the body by taking into consideration the knowledge gained from neuro-scientific advances. The connection and working links between psychoanalytic psychotherapists and the medical world are at the heart of the psychoanalytic tradition.