Tools for Effective Therapy with Children and Families


Book Description

Tools for Effective Therapy with Children and Families provides mental health professionals with step-by-step tools and strategies for effective therapeutic outcomes with children and their families. An integration of solution-focused brief therapy and play therapy, this groundbreaking book is uniquely suited to clinicians working with school-aged children and their parents. Tools for Effective Therapy with Children and Families uses clearly articulated and creative play activities to elicit conversations about solutions, successes, and collaborative goals with clients. Session transcripts and technique illustrations throughout the chapters allow clinicians to see the solution-focused approach in action.




Tools for Effective Therapy with Children and Families


Book Description

Tools for Effective Therapy with Children and Families provides mental health professionals with step-by-step tools and strategies for effective therapeutic outcomes with children and their families. An integration of solution-focused brief therapy and play therapy, this groundbreaking book is uniquely suited to clinicians working with school-aged children and their parents. Tools for Effective Therapy with Children and Families uses clearly articulated and creative play activities to elicit conversations about solutions, successes, and collaborative goals with clients. Session transcripts and technique illustrations throughout the chapters allow clinicians to see the solution-focused approach in action.




Assessment and Treatment Activities for Children, Adolescents, and Families


Book Description

In this comprehensive resource, Liana Lowenstein has compiled an impressive collection of techniques from experienced practitioners. Interventions are outlined for engaging, assessing, and treating children of all ages and their families. Activities address a range of issues including, Feelings Expression, Social Skills, Self-Esteem, and Termination. A "must have" for mental health professionals seeking to add creative interventions to their repertoire.




Parenting Matters


Book Description

Decades of research have demonstrated that the parent-child dyad and the environment of the familyâ€"which includes all primary caregiversâ€"are at the foundation of children's well- being and healthy development. From birth, children are learning and rely on parents and the other caregivers in their lives to protect and care for them. The impact of parents may never be greater than during the earliest years of life, when a child's brain is rapidly developing and when nearly all of her or his experiences are created and shaped by parents and the family environment. Parents help children build and refine their knowledge and skills, charting a trajectory for their health and well-being during childhood and beyond. The experience of parenting also impacts parents themselves. For instance, parenting can enrich and give focus to parents' lives; generate stress or calm; and create any number of emotions, including feelings of happiness, sadness, fulfillment, and anger. Parenting of young children today takes place in the context of significant ongoing developments. These include: a rapidly growing body of science on early childhood, increases in funding for programs and services for families, changing demographics of the U.S. population, and greater diversity of family structure. Additionally, parenting is increasingly being shaped by technology and increased access to information about parenting. Parenting Matters identifies parenting knowledge, attitudes, and practices associated with positive developmental outcomes in children ages 0-8; universal/preventive and targeted strategies used in a variety of settings that have been effective with parents of young children and that support the identified knowledge, attitudes, and practices; and barriers to and facilitators for parents' use of practices that lead to healthy child outcomes as well as their participation in effective programs and services. This report makes recommendations directed at an array of stakeholders, for promoting the wide-scale adoption of effective programs and services for parents and on areas that warrant further research to inform policy and practice. It is meant to serve as a roadmap for the future of parenting policy, research, and practice in the United States.




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.




Creative Family Therapy Techniques


Book Description

Bringing together an array of highly creative contributors, this comprehensive resource presents a unique collection of assessment and treatment techniques. Contributors illustrate how play, art, drama, and other approaches can effectively engage families and help them resolve complex problems. Practitioners from divergent theoretical orientations, work settings, or client specialisations will find a plethora of stimulating and useable clinical interventions in this book.




The Therapist's Notebook for Families


Book Description

Help your clients facilitate positive changes with these innovative therapeutic exercises! The Therapist's Notebook for Families empowers mental health professionals with clear, practical, easy-to-use therapeutic exercises for working with parents, adolescents, children, and families. These exercises will improve your effectiveness with clients, helping them to explore possibilities, find solutions, and create change in spite of difficult problems. The current climate in the mental health field calls for professionals to be both effective and accountable. This book will help you to work more effectively and more respectfully with clients with an array of exercises designed to facilitate change processes. These activities will help you and your clients in: establishing goals and projected outcomes changing unhealthy views improving on their current style of action/interaction identifying and amplifying change managing setbacks ending therapy This volume include suggestions for the best ways to use the exercises as well as descriptions of the purpose of each activity. The Therapist's Notebook for Families will prove invaluable in your work with families!




Activity Groups in Family-Centered Treatment


Book Description

Get the tools for practical family-based interventions for children or adolescents with mental illness Providing parent-child occupation-based interventions can be one of the most important therapeutic services offered to children or parents with mental illness and their families. Activity Groups in Family-Centered Treatment: Psychiatric Occupational Therapy Approaches for Parents and Children provides useful in depth how to strategies into the processes of providing family occupation-based group intervention when a child has a mental illness. Occupational therapists working with children or parents with mental illness can learn valuable practical interventions to apply in their own clinical work. Cherished activities that strengthen parent-child bonds are many times lacking in families that include a child or parent with mental illness. Activity Groups in Family-Centered Treatment describes valuable parent-child occupation-based interventions with detailed examples of how they have been provided in therapy. This text provides an overview of the literature related to providing family-based psychiatric OT treatment for children and their families, a framework for providing services, rich descriptions of a parent-child activity group, a parent-adolescent activity group, and case studies of inpatient and home-based occupation based interventions. Topics in Activity Groups in Family-Centered Treatment include: an overview of theory and research literature on the nature of the interaction between parents and children with emotional disorders detailed case studies of family challenges with mental illness a framework for parent-child activity groups a qualitative study of a parent-child activity group analysis of the barriers that can arise in a parent-child activity group clinical experiences leading a parent-adolescent activity group analysis of the influences of culture within a parent-child activity group a case study of the intervention for a depressed mother and her family issues between parents and professionals when children are psychiatrically hospitalized Activity Groups in Family-Centered Treatment provides occupational therapists and other professionals who lead parent-child groups or who work with families that include a child or parent with mental illness with integral tools to effectively treat their clients.




Positive Psychology and Family Therapy


Book Description

An affirming guide equipping family therapists to effectively incorporate positive psychology within their practices The next step in the evolution of family therapy, positive psychology has enabled family therapists to help families—whatever their form—to build upon their strengths, overcome dysfunction, and move to new levels of harmony and thriving. Positive Psychology and Family Therapy: Creative Techniques and Practical Tools for Guiding Change and Enhancing Growth integrates positive psychology into traditional family therapy, presenting therapists with best-practice wisdom and evidence-based clinical tools to help?turn dysfunctional or troubled families into flourishing families. Contributing a unique perspective to the field that combines the research, practice, and theory associated with the latest in positive psychology and family therapy, Positive Psychology and Family Therapy equips therapists to cultivate virtues, such as empathy, kindness, responsibility, involvement, social justice, work ethic, teamwork, purpose, and volunteerism. Filled with homework assignments and exercises that integrate positive techniques and interventions, this book establishes and promotes the family as the basic building block of the individual and the community. Offering therapists with no previous introduction to positive psychology a solid foundation, this text includes essential discussion of family interventions and techniques that demonstrate positive family therapy, as well as case examples that bring the concepts covered to life in real and accessible scenarios. Authors Collie Conoley and Jane Close Conoley draw from their years of experience working with families to offer an integrated, practical?approach that allows family therapists to utilize positive psychology principles effectively within their practices.




Solution-Focused Therapy with Children


Book Description

This practice-oriented book demonstrates an innovative, effective, brief therapy approach for time-sensitive assessment and intervention with children and families. With trademark creativity, flexibility, and humor, Matthew Selekman combines the best elements of a range of current approaches with family play and art therapy techniques, to create a comprehensive solution-focused model. Illustrated by numerous case examples and session transcripts, and supported by empirical research, Solution-Focused Therapy with Children helps frontline clinicians--regardless of level of experience--master the skills they need to bring about rapid, lasting change.