Child psychotherapy - Ośrodek Regeneracja
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Child psychotherapy

What is child psychotherapy?

Child psychotherapy is a way of helping a child to make sense of painful, sad, angry or confusing thoughts and feelings. The psychotherapy process involves work with children through play, drawing and talking about events and experiences. The therapist usually does not direct what happens in the sessions, but provides a consistent and safe setting where a child can begin to express their thoughts and feelings more freely. In psychotherapy, children gradually become more able to identify and express their thoughts and feelings. The treatment will usually have a beneficial effect on behavior and relationships at home. As children become less preoccupied with worries, they can also make better use of opportunities at school.

When can child psychotherapy be helpful?

Child psychotherapy can help with many emotional and behavioral problems in childhood. For example, a child might be anxious, finding it difficult to sleep, to separate from parents or to go to school. A child may be struggling at school with friendships, bullying or academic work. Sometimes a family is suffering from stress and this can affect the children, e.g. if parents are not getting along, if they are divorcing, if the family experiences an illness, bereavement or a loss of a job. Times of transition and change, e.g. from kindergarten to primary school or from primary to secondary school, can be difficult to cope with.
Children with physical and learning disability, autism spectrum disorder and Asperger’s Syndrome can face additional challenges in life and they also may able benefit from psychotherapy.

How does the therapy work?

A traditional model of child psychotherapy involves regular sessions for a child, once or more times a week, for a period of several months. In this type of treatment it is also extremely helpful for the parents to be regularly seen by a therapist to provide support for them, as the parents might be struggling to help their child at home.
It usually starts with one or more meetings/consultations with parents, during which they can tell the therapist in detail about their worries with regard to their child. Further on, a therapist sees a child for an assessment, which involves seeing the child on their own several times. Following this, the therapist meets the parents again to think together and discuss options for further therapy, tailored to the family’s needs, if both the therapist and the parents believe it would be helpful.

The therapy might involve a fixed number of individual sessions for the child or more open-ended long-term therapy. Parents, however, might prefer to have further sessions in their own circle, to have some supportive space to think about how they could be helping their child at home. Sessions for parents and children or individual therapy for parents are also possible.

What is available in ReGeneRacja?

– Consultations and diagnosis
– Short- and long-term child psychotherapy
– Perinatal psychological counseling and psychotherapy
– Home visits: consultations and assessment (pre- and post-natal issues, parenting education)
– Psychological counseling and education for parents
– Group psychotherapy and training sessions for children

Ośroodek Regeneracja - dr Barbara Arska-Karyłowska
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dr Barbara Arska-Karyłowska

PhD - psychologist, child and adolescent psychotherapist. In 1992-2022 she has been a certified psychologist in the state of Florida (license number: PY 2664), and since 2006 she has had a European Psychotherapy Certificate. She has been working as a child psychotherapist for over 35 years. She has experience working both in the USA and in Poland. Applies behavioral and behavioral-cognitive approaches. She is interested in the psychopathology of children and adolescents with special emphasis on ADHD and anxiety disorders. At the University of Social Sciences and Humanities she conducted classes in the field of child psychopathology (diagnosis and impact). In her therapy work, she enjoys most the contact with children-patients in individual therapy, and as an academic lecturer she most values the need to constantly improve her skills. At ReGeneRacja Center: conducts individual psychotherapy and diagnose starting from children in preschool and older. Also runs counseling meetings for parents.
Ośroodek Regeneracja - Alicja Krystyniak-Laskowska
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Alicja Krystyniak-Laskowska

She graduated from the University of Warsaw with a Master’s degree in psychology. She also completed a four-year course of psychodynamic psychotherapy at the Krakow Psychodynamic Center which is recommended by the Polish Psychological Association. Currently she is a final-year student of the clinical psychology of children and adolescents course organized by the Maria Grzegorzewska University and the Center of Postgraduate Medical Education. She gained my professional experience working in a psychiatric hospital, the jeuvenile rehabilitation unit and doing various clinical internships i.e. the Empowering Children Foundation, a sociotherapeutic common-room, pediatric units, the Irish Foster Care Association, a residential care center, a forensic psychologists center (OZSS). Currently she works in a public mental health center for children and adolescents as a psychologist -psychotherapist. She’s interested in the psychopathology with special emphasis on anxiety, affective and attachment disorders. In ReGeneRacja she provides a psychological support for children and counseling meeting for parents as well as therapeutic summer camps.
Ośroodek Regeneracja - dr Małgorzata Pięta-Lendzion
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dr Małgorzata Pięta-Lendzion

I am a graduate of the Faculty of Psychology at the Inter-faculty Individual Studies in Mathematics and Natural Sciences of the University of Warsaw. I am working on a doctoral project in the Doctoral School of Social Sciences at the University of Warsaw. In addition, I am going through a comprehensive psychotherapeutic training attested by the Psychotherapy Scientific Section and the Family Therapy Scientific Section of the Polish Psychiatric Association. I have gathered my clinical experience in such places as the Prophylaxis and Treatment Clinic at the Voivodeship Infectious Disease Hospital, the Hanna Segal Institute for Psychoanalytic Studies and the Clinic at the Institute of Mother and Child in Warsaw. I have experience in individual work with adults, children and young people and in work with psychotherapeutic groups. I am active in several research teams and I am the author and co-author of scientific articles on clinical psychology and health psychology.