This award-winning book presents a realistic picture of therapy's rewards and challenges through sixteen actual cases involving children and adolescents. Readers are exposed to a variety of counseling theories and the real, live counselors who use them. The cases deal with major problem areas such as sexual abuse, dual diagnoses, seriously dysfunctional families, and addictions. A five-part organization of each case covers: an introduction that discusses the presenting problem and background information about the client; conceptualization of therapeutic goals and strategies; process descriptions of actual client contacts (it explains what happened in sessions and how the therapist's relationship with the client changed over time); outcome sections describing the result of the work done between therapist and client; and discussion explanations of what the author/therapist might have done differently. In addition, the author describes his or her personal and professional growth that resulted from this encounter with a troubled youngster. For child and adolescent counselors beginning their journey as therapists.