Infant Play Therapy


Book Description

Infant Play Therapy is a groundbreaking resource for practitioners interested in the varied play therapy theories, models, and programs available for the unique developmental needs of infants and children under the age of three. The impressive list of expert contributors in the fields of play therapy and infant mental health cover a wide range of early intervention play-based models and topics. Chapters explore areas including: neurobiology, developmental trauma, parent-infant attachment relationships, neurosensory play, affective touch, grief and loss, perinatal depression, adoption, autism, domestic violence, sociocultural factors, and more. Chapter case studies highlight leading approaches and offer techniques to provide a comprehensive understanding of both play therapy and the ways we understand and recognize the therapeutic role of play with infants. In these pages professionals and students alike will find valuable clinical resources to bring healing to family systems with young children.




Play Therapy for Very Young Children


Book Description

Play Therapy for Very Young Children presents the major models of play interventions with very young children, primarily ages zero to three, and their families. The editors have compiled essays by child development experts to create a comprehensive guide of the most beneficial...




Touch in Child Counseling and Play Therapy


Book Description

Touch in Child Counseling and Play Therapy explores the professional and legal boundaries around physical contact in therapy and offers best-practice guidelines from a variety of perspectives. Chapters address issues around appropriate and sensitive therapist-initiated touch, therapeutic approaches that use touch as an intervention in child treatment, and both positive and challenging forms of touch that are initiated by children. In these pages, professionals and students alike will find valuable information on ways to address potential ethical dilemmas, including defining boundaries, working with parents and guardians, documentation, consent forms, cultural considerations, countertransference, and much more.




FirstPlay Kinesthetic Storytelling


Book Description

FirstPlay Kinesthetic Storytelling Practitioner Training ManualBy Dr Janet a Courtney




Play Therapy Treatment Planning and Interventions


Book Description

Play Therapy: Treatment Planning and Interventions: The Ecosystemic Model and Workbook, 2e, provides key information on one of the most rapidly developing and growing areas of therapy. Ecosystemic play therapy is a dynamic integrated therapeutic model for addressing the mental health needs of children and their families. The book is designed to help play therapists develop specific treatment goals and focused treatment plans as now required by many regulating agencies and third-party payers. Treatment planning is based on a comprehensive case conceptualization that is developmentally organized, strength-based, and grounded in an ecosystemic context of multiple interacting systems. The text presents guidelines for interviewing clients and families as well as pretreatment assessments and data gathering for ecosystemic case conceptualization. The therapist's theoretical model, expertise, and context are considered. The book includes descriptions of actual play therapy activities organized by social-emotional developmental levels of the children. Any preparation the therapist may need to complete before the session is identified, as is the outcome the therapist may expect. Each activity description ends with a suggestion about how the therapist might follow up on the content and experience in future sessions. The activity descriptions are practical and geared to the child. Case examples and completed sections of the workbook are provided. It provides the therapist with an easy-to-use format for recording critical case information, specific treatment goals, and the overall treatment plan. Workbook templates can be downloaded and adapted for the therapist's professional practice. Presents a comprehensive theory of play therapy Clearly relates the theoretical model to interventions Provides examples of the application of both the theory and the intervention model to specific cases Describes actual play therapy activities Workbook format provides a means of obtaining comprehensive intake and assessment data Case examples provided throughout




Play Therapy Techniques


Book Description

The second edition of Play Therapy Techniques includes seven new chapters in addition to the original twenty-four. These lively chapters expand the comprehensive scope of the book by describing issues involved in beginning and ending therapy, using metaphors, playing music and ball, and applying the renowned "Color Your Life" technique. The extensive selection of play techniques described in this book will add to the clinical repertoire of students and practitioners of child therapy and counseling. When used in combination with formal education and clinical supervision, Play Therapy Techniques, Second Edition, can be especially useful for developing treatment plans to address the specific needs of various clinical populations. Students and practitioners of child therapy and counseling, including psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, nurses, and child life specialists will find this second of Play Therapy Techniques informative and clinically useful.




Family Play Therapy


Book Description

Play therapy and family therapy both are well established therapeutic paradigms. Often, however, play therapists have minimal contact with the nuclear family of which their child patient is a member. Similarly, family therapists frequently view young children as disruptive and exclude them from family sessions. By combining both play and family treatment modalities as this unique book Family Play Therapy suggests, all family members can participate in a therapeutic process which, in its inclusion of everyone, is more genuine and therefore successful. Family Play Therapy encourages the blending of play therapy and family therapy by discussing and demonstrating various techniques and diverse theoretical approaches that will enable readers to broaden their repertoire when working with families and their young children. Each author describes his or her own creative avenue of expression such as puppetry, psychodrama, and sandplay, which facilitate the family's communication, helping members to find new ways to hear each other. Family play therapy and play therapy need not be exclusionary. The two approaches actually can enhance and enrich each other. While each therapist ultimately will use his or her own ideas in the critical combining of both methods, Family Play Therapy offers various possibilities and as such, helps therapists to help their family patients to be readily engaged in treatment and to experience therapy as a fun, inclusive, transforming time together.




Play Therapy


Book Description

Play Therapy: A Psychodynamic Primer for the Treatment of Young Children provides a contemporary, comprehensive exploration of the theory and technique of psychoanalytically oriented play therapy, addressing both the dearth of writings on these topics and the frequent lack of in-depth education on the basic principles and practice of psychodynamic play therapy offered by contemporary training programs for child clinicians. Divided into two distinct parts, this guide covers major theoretical issues -- including the role of play in human development, the application of basic psychodynamic concepts to work with young children, and the impact of contemporary techno-culture on play -- and offers pragmatic guidance on conducting play treatment and handling the complexities of treating young patients (e.g., initiating treatment, working with parents, managing aggression in the playroom). Among the book's standout features are: An abundance of clinical vignettes that illustrate childhood behaviors, common dilemmas, and potential therapist responses A summary of key concepts at the end of each chapter that underscores major takeaways and can be easily referenced by busy clinicians A glossary of key terms for each chapter for added comprehensibility Offering a skillful balance of broad but coherent foundational information as well as practical application, Play Therapy: A Psychodynamic Primer for the Treatment of Young Children functions both as an introduction for young therapists and as a guide for more experienced child clinicians who wish to expand their knowledge of play and its therapeutic potential.




The Handbook of Play Therapy and Therapeutic Play


Book Description

This completely revised and updated second edition provides a comprehensive introduction to using play to communicate with troubled or traumatized children and their families, and to heal emotional damage. The book gives examples of good practice in different settings and situations. Drawing on psychodynamic, systemic and attachment theory, the book provides an integrated theory base for using play in therapeutic work with children. It emphasizes non-directive approaches to therapeutic play and play therapy, based on supporting the child’s developing self within the safe boundaries provided by the setting and the worker’s emotional holding and containment. Areas explored include: children with disabilities and illnesses daily living with abused and traumatized children helping troubled families difficulties in early years children experiencing separation, loss and bereavement children moving to new families. The Handbook of Play Therapy and Therapeutic Play is an invaluable resource for all of those using play therapy with children and will appeal not only to play therapists but also to professionals working in the broader field of therapeutic play. It will be useful whether the readers are at the beginning of their training or are well-established and experienced practitioners and managers.




Healing Child and Family Trauma through Expressive and Play Therapies: Art, Nature, Storytelling, Body & Mindfulness


Book Description

Healing assessments and interventions from disparate areas of knowledge such as art, nature, and storytelling. There are many ways to help children and families heal from trauma. Leaning on our ancestral wisdom of healing through play, art, nature, storytelling, body, touch, imagination, and mindfulness practice, Janet A. Courtney helps the clinician bring a variety of practices into the therapy room. This book identifies seven stages of therapy that provide a framework for working with client’s emotional, cognitive, somatic, and sensory experiences to heal from trauma. Through composite case illustrations, practitioners will learn how to safely mitigate a range of trauma content, including complicated grief, natural disaster, children in foster care, aggression, toxic divorce, traumatized infants diagnosed with neonatal abstinence syndrome, and young mothers recovering from opioid addiction. Practice exercises interspersed throughout guide practitioners to personally engage in the creative expressive and play therapy techniques presented in each chapter, augmenting professional self- awareness and skill- building competencies.