The increasing number of young people at risk of substance abuse, addicted to psychoactive substances, or suffering from behavioral addictions, constitutes a serious contemporary social problem. Media reports and scientists’ appeals draw attention to these threats to children’s and adolescents’ harmonious development. The questions concerning not only their causes and conditioning factors, but also approaches and methods currently used in diagnostic and therapeutic practices, and, of course, their efficiency, become the pressing ones. The paper is a review paper which presents contemporary theoretical approaches and practical tendencies in therapy directed at children and adolescents. Thus, it corresponds to the topic of this issue of the j...