Collaborative Problem Solving™ (CPS) was first articulated as a treatment model for explosive kids in the book, The Explosive Child, by Dr. Ross Greene, and subsequently in a book for mental health clinicians, Treating Explosive Kids: The Collaborative Problem Solving Approach, by Dr. Greene and his colleague, Dr. Stuart Ablon. Over the last ten years, the model has been applied to children with a wide range of social, emotional, and behavioral challenges and in a wide range of settings: families, schools, and restrictive therapeutic facilities (including inpatient units, residential facilities, and juvenile detention facilities). The model has also been applied to “ordinary” kids as well as to adults.
As applied to challenging kids, the model sets forth two major tenets: first, that these challenges are best understood as the byproduct of lagging cognitive skills (rather than, for example, as attention-seeking, manipulative, limit-testing, or a sign of poor motivation); and second, that these challenges are best addressed by teaching children the skills they lack (rather than through reward and punishment programs and intensive imposition of adult will).