Dr Arnold P Goldstein is a clinical psychologist whose work has focused on the causes and reduction of youth violence. He is currently the Professor of Special Education at Syracuse University, New York, and the Director of their Centre for Research on Aggression. He is also the Co-Director of the New York State Task force on Juvenile Gangs and a member of the American Psychological Association's Commission on Youth Violence.

A small proportion of children and adolescents experience a debilitating level of social anxiety, known as social phobia. Initially, we consider the phenomenology and aetiology of social phobia in children and adolescents. A number of age-sensitive assessment instruments or tools are briefly considered: a diagnostic interview, self-report instruments, cognitive assessment and self-monitoring. We explore cognitive-behavioural strategies that have been found to be useful in the management of social phobia. Although there is much research support for the efficacy of cognitive-behavioural strategies for adults with social phobia, it is emphasized that controlled evaluations have yet to be undertaken with socially phobic youngsters.

Students who are truant from school are frequently referred to a guidance officer or school psychologist in the hope of improving their school attendance. This presents a difficult task as little is known about the effectiveness of counselling with such students. This paper reviews the literature to identify reasons for truancy and to suggest some ways in which this knowledge may be of assistance in developing appropriate counselling strategies. This paper is concerned with truanting students of compulsory high school age. A definition of the various types of truancy is presented and a number of possible causes are identified. Two concepts which offer possibilities for developing counselling strategies with truanting students are discussed. These are, firstly, the feeling of alienation and disaffection from school experienced by many truants and, secondly, the individual psychology theory of Psychological Reversals proposed by Apter (1982).

This article discusses two recent projects concerned with the problem of eating disorders and their prevention: One, an initiative of the NSW Department of School Education, examined the possibilities for prevention in schools. The other, the author's doctoral research on recovery from anorexia nervosa, explored the ways in which recovery takes place. Both took as their starting point the social aspects of eating disorders. The article discusses existing models of prevention. It outlines the aims, methods and findings of the NSW project, including what was discovered about students' self-image and attitudes to their bodies, the sources of information available to them concerning the problem, its relation to competitive sport, and the anxieties about it which were expressed by teachers and parents. It is argued that a study of recovery can make a strong contribution to preventive strategies. Participants in the second project, spoke of their own recovery as a rediscovery of meaning in their lives through access to ‘myths’ and ‘rituals’. This finding is explained in both sociological and recent scientific terms. The author concludes that an understanding of the factors present in recovery from an eating disorder can provide a blueprint for prevention.

Adoption as a social phenomenon has always given rise to emotional controversy and the over-representation of adopted children at clinics and mental heath facilities has lead to studies which have focussed on the concept of psychological risk associated with adoption. Referral for assistance requires that counsellors and therapists appreciate the unique circumstances and vulnerabilities of adoptive families and are able to differentiate between normal transitional crises and adoption issues. To this end an overview of adoption concerns and, in particular, a developmental approach to adoption, is presented as a guide for those health professionals working with adoptive families.

Adoption has provided a fertile area of investigation into family attachment and functioning, and in particular the relative impact of nurture versus nature in human growth and development, although the secrecy surrounding adoption and the sensitivity of the process has created methodological problems and made it difficult to conduct representative large-scale studies. A re-occurring question has been whether the process of adoption itself is a stressor which predisposes adoptive families to psychological distress and maladjustment, and if so how does this manifest itself?