Janice E. Williams – författare

This book has grown out of our individual experiences as well as our shared ones; out of our differences as well as our commonalities; and out of our conflicts as well as our convergences. Among us there are dif­ ferences in gender; in individual, family, community, and racial histo­ ries; in life experiences, identities, and career paths; and even in reasons for writing this book. Of course there are also commonalities. We enjoy one another's company; we enjoy working together; and we feel en­ riched from our collaboration. We have written this book out of our complete selves, not just our professional selves. The original objective of our book was to present to practitioners of psychotherapy, trainers of psychotherapists, and psychotherapy stu­ dents a model of conducting psychotherapy that actively acknowledges and builds upon the ethnic and racial heritage of both therapist and client. We have found that to fulfill that objective we need also to acknowledge and build upon the psychological ecology of the therapist and client; and we also need to outline the kind of research necessary if we are to develop and evaluate the perspectives presented here. Those perspectives are embodied in what we have come to call the ethnic validity model (EVM) of psychotherapy.

Child/adolescent development and behavior have been a traditional "concern" of prima­ ry health care providers. However, it was not until the mid-1960s that attempts were made to consolidate developmental-behavioral issues into an identifiably distinct fund of medi­ cal knowledge. During the ensuing two decades, developmental-behavioral pediatrics was recognized as a clinical and research subspecialty, within the framework of compre­ hensive health care for children. The influence of public advocacy groups, topic-dedicated journals, national professional specialty societies, subject-related continuing education programs, and federal legislation (PL94-142) has served to crystallize developmen­ tal-behavioral pediatrics as a specialized field of study. As a consequence, during the past ten years significant modifications have restructured medical student and pediatric resi­ dent education, providing an emphasis on developmental-behavioral issues. The focus on neurodevelopmental, educational, and psychosocial issues reflects changing priorities in traditional health care for children. The postgraduate training of pediatric fellows, in two­ and three-year training programs, was initiated to accommodate professional manpower needs in both academic and practice settings. Many of the problems in childhood development and behavior frequently span the traditional areas of child neurology, child psychiatry, and general pediatrics. As a result there has been some confusion in demarcating professional responsibilities in diagnosis and management, as well as poorly defined terminology and classification schemas. With the birth of developmental pediatrics as a pediatric specialty, a more cohesive fund of knowledge has been accumulated and more meaningful strategies have beendesigned for prevention, diagnosis, and management.