My wife loves kids but refuses to work with them. Because working with kids means working with parents and that she refused to do.
I worked with kids from 3 and up. If it was involving a custody dispute I explained to the parents that I was not working with or for them the child was my only client and if they wanted to subpoena me to court they needed to understand that I might not be their friend. Lawyers loved me because as one lawyer told me getting the money, the house they could go gung ho but the kids - they hated custody fights so to the extent that I could mediate a solution based on what was best for the children they were happy. With young kids 3 to 10 I mostly used play and art therapy. for older kids I used solution based approaches. I quite liked Michael White. His book Narrative Means to a Therapeutic End was great. (I hope I have the title right) I gave it away to a colleague when I retired ten years ago. Most of the conflict with parents were essentially power struggles and fashioning a win win solution is possible in most cases. I also liked empowering kids by teaching them how to change their parents behaviour. Quite achievable using a family systems approach. Anyway its late where I am and I just keep prattling on. TinMan will no doubt fashion some smarmy remark having to do with boring people into comas. Cheers
LOL: Sounds the same as me: non-profits and private practice. I oversaw numerous county contracts, DUI first time offender referral program, California Youth Authority, Juvenile Hall, PC 1000, first time drug offender counseling, court referred molestation perpetrators. a runaway shelter, and a shitload of other stuff. In addition to the programs, family counseling, outreach, and other services. Over 20 years. I have a heavy grounding in family therapy techniques but consider myself a cognitive existentialist. Jay Haley, Carl Whittaker. I have some specialized training in (What was then called 'contextual therapy.) It’s not the same today or does not seem the same. The emphasis was on creating a therapeutic context in the counseling room.
Looking forward to some of your posts.
[quote=“Canuk, post:42, topic:3779”]
I also liked empowering kids by teaching them how to change their parents’ behavior.
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Certainly one useful way of doing it.
It’s wonderful but please take this conversation to the Hub. This is the Debate Forum. 
Very similar although you seem to have worked more with teens than I did and perhaps more court mandated. Some of
the children I worked with were on the track that would wind up in your office. Example: As part of my mandated I saw kids between 6 and 12 that were acting out sexually. Most were just, I’ll show you mine if you show you mine". A good number were prematurely sexualized, getting into dads porn videos or walking in on mom and her latest. But a few were showing predatory behaviour.
My first job was recruiting, arranging training for and coordinating volunteers for a crisis line and for a program called special services to children. I covered the line during the day. Then operating a group home for teens with my wife. Then counselling and off the side of my desk executive director for that same agency. And finally full time ED for a larger agencies. I worked for the Ministry of Children in child protection for a short while that seemed like a long while. Along the way I earned a Bachelor followed by a Masters degree in social work and had two daughters. Time span 1976 - 2014.
Like you lots of specialized workshops on topics like attachment disorder, ADHD, FAS, Substance abuse, Art and Play therapy, family systems and solution based therapy.
Just realized that this topic is about astral projection so I should mention that I found LSD, Peyote and magic mushrooms quite helpful in that regard. My astral projection travels started in the mid 60’s and ended in the early 70’s.
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Teens and criminals 18 to 25. Lots of court-mandated stuff. 8 to 16, community group homes, gang members, family visitations, more drugs and alcohol stuff, and more court-mandated stuff. Yep!
LOL - mushrooms and LSD for me. But I was into meditation, ZEN, and my early degree in sociology got me interested in dream cultures. I have been doing the out-of-body thing since my early 20s. I am convinced it is the same as OBE. My sense of it is that a brain deprived of sensory input creates sensory input. It’s all brain states. I can still do the out-of-body thing today. I laugh at all the woo-woo and bullshit written about it. I think anyone can do it with practice. It’s very simple.
Okay I’m remembering those float tanks; no light, no sound, briny water for buoyancy at body temperature. I may have floated away a few times in those. And in all seriousness I do remember learning to do it without drugs but the temptation to become a peeper was too great. Not to mention that it never seemed to work for that. Over the years I have developed a strong distrust of the woo woo new age krapolla.
I loved those flotation chambers. But found I did not need them after only a few visits. I always loved how walking about after a session felt so light. I sense learned to do that as well by just slowing my breathing. I am fully convinced that a whole lot of the woo-woo, like religion, just takes shit that people can naturally do and attribute it to their spirits, their god, their holy ghosts, and their bullshit. We can live without the woo woo explanations.
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Right you are Cog 
Let me iterate. This conversation is not a debate. Move it to the Hub, or to a p.m. conversation. Last friendly warning.
That is an objective fact, though we are lucky, throughout much of human history many people had no such choice.
To get us back on track, here is my original response the the thread OP…
Since none was forthcoming, it doesn’t need debunking…