A model for acute psychiatric inpatient treatment of latency-age children.

Beginning with the premise that acute inpatient treatment of severely disturbed latency-age children offers enormous advantages over other types of interventions, the author describes a model for such treatment. The model consists of three phases: initial, working-through, and termination. It has a psychoanalytic basis and takes into account changing factors, such as the child's symptoms and the attitudes of both the child and his parents throughout different stages of the hospitalization. A case history illustrates the various phases and the treatment interventions used.