This is a well laid out treatment planner book with the potential of saving a clinician many hours of painstakingly writing a treatment plan. A clinician could merely write the page number, and the numbered items of what he or she would like to say, and it also has areas for clinicians to add items if what they want to say is not in the planner. The book is written in lay terms so that the insurance companies and the clients themselves can understand the treatment plans.

In the introduction, it reviews the process of writing a good treatment plan. It lists six steps to go through to develop the plan. 1) Problem Selection, 2) Problem Definition, 3) Goal Development, 4) Objective Construction, 5) Intervention Creation 6) Diagnosis Determination. Each one of these steps is followed by a short explanation of what needs to be in this area. The authors state that the planner "…was developed as a tool to aid clinicians in writing a treatment plan…" This is a very important statement for this book. Though a lot of areas are covered in this book, it is only an aid and should not be used as a "Bible" to writing a treatment plan. Every client is different, and needs to be looked at individually. This treatment planner recognizes that factor, and warns a clinician of it.

The authors show a nice example of what a treatment plan could look like. The book is divided up into different areas of crisis. Each area of crisis is broken down into 1) behavioral definitions 2) long-term goals 3) short-term objectives 4) therapeutic interventions and 5) diagnostic suggestions. In this last section, it gives possible diagnoses and the identifying numbers from the DSM-IV. This was found to be a great time saver since it saves the clinician from having to look in the DSM-IV for the numbers to simple diagnosis. It should in no way replace the DMS-IV, but it makes suggestions of diagnosis to consider.

This planner also has a very helpful list in an appendix of bibliotherapy suggestions for further research and reading on the areas listed in the book. It is a very nice touch to assist in the individualization of treatment plans.

I was most impressed with the aid that this planner presented. This would be a great asset to all clinicians’ libraries, but it would really be most helpful to those who don’t do Child and Adolescent plans often. The planner is recommended to all clinicians, therapists, case managers and counselors.

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Categories: Psychotherapy, MentalHealth

Keywords: Pediatrics, Counseling - Children