Abstract

All mental health professionals who work with children and adolescents encounter delinquency in one form or another. Even professionals who do not assess or treat acting-out youth often come into contact with the havoc they wreak on the lives of loved ones and other victims. In fact, acting-out behavior, broadly defined, is routinely cited as being among the most common reasons youths are referred to mental health professionals in any setting. In one recent sample of 1.3 million children participating in mental health services (Pottick et al., 2002), the disruptive behavior disorders collectively represented the most frequent category of diagnoses (30.8% of the overall sample). Aggression was among the most common presenting problems overall and, not surprisingly, was the single most prevalent presenting problem in both inpatient and residential settings (accounting for 48.7% and 66.2% of referrals, respectively).