Social Class and Child Psychiatric Practice: The Clinician's Evaluation of the Outcome of Therapy

Data from the evaluation and treatment of 364 lower-, lower middle-, and upper middle-class children were compared. There was no significant difference among the three groups as to perceived improvement at termination of treatment, but longer duration of treatment was associated with greater improvement in the upper middle-class group compared with the other two. While the findings did not indicate class-related differences in basic treatment approach, they did point up subtle difficulties in application of traditional therapeutic modes to lower middle-class and lower-class patients.