The residential treatment of children and adolescents with school phobia.

In describing the inpatient treatment of 16 preadolescent and adolescent school-phobic children, the older, more chronically ill child resistant to previous outpatient psychotherapeutic attempts is the focus of this study. Two distinct subgroups differing in individual psychodynamics are delineated. Clinical observations of the child's experience in the residential setting are presented. Those individual ingredients of the residential setting that brought about therapeutic gain for these children are isolated and analyzed.