Aggression Replacement Training: methods, efficiency and practical use in department of child and adolescent psychiatry

Aggression Replacement Training was created by Arnold Goldstein. It is a world widespread therapeutic training aimed to prevent aggressive behaviour. Originally developed to work with youth from correctional institutions, now it is adopted to needs of a wide group of potential participants and can be used in various educational institutions like kindergartens, primary and secondary schools, childcare centres and psychiatric wards. This paper consists of four sections. The first section contains historical overview of the beginning of the program. Section two presents the idea of Aggression Replacement Training and subsequently a description of all three modules as well as CBT techniques and interventions used. Section three is a review of evaluation researches with conclusions for a practical usage and efficiency of this method. This section concentrates mostly on government reports concerning Aggression Replacement Training, which present possible benefits and savings related to the program. At the end of the article authors describe their own experiences with Aggression Replacement Training from their work with children and adolescents from department of child and adolescent psychiatry as well as some self-modifications to the program which were made to fit Aggression Replacement Training to a hospital environment.