Contemporary Child Psychotherapy: Integration and Imagination in Creative Clinical Practice demonstrates the step-by-step process of developing the depth of understanding, creativity, knowledge and skill that underpin a modern integrative child psychotherapist. Portrayed is a flexible model that is fluid and evolving, bringing together traditional, long-held ideas with fresh perspectives and up-to-date research. In bringing together psychoanalytic theory, attachment theory, trauma theories, the arts and creativity, neuroscience and the body, a rich framework is created. From this, the individual integrative child psychotherapist can choose the interventions which best foster the emotional development of each unique child and their parents today.
This highly practical book presents current developments in play therapy, including innovative applications for particular problems and populations. Contributors first discuss the latest ideas and techniques emerging from object relations, experiential, dynamic, and narrative perspectives. Next, research evaluating the effectiveness of play interventions is reviewed in detail. The book's third and largest section demonstrates creative approaches for helping children deal with a variety of adverse circumstances: homelessness, family problems, sexual abuse, social aggression, natural disasters, and more. Throughout, rich case illustrations enhance the book's utility for clinicians.
Contemporary Child Psychotherapy: Integration and Imagination in Creative Clinical Practice demonstrates the step-by-step process of developing the depth of understanding, creativity, knowledge and skill that underpin a modern integrative child psychotherapist. Portrayed is a flexible model that is fluid and evolving, bringing together traditional, long-held ideas with fresh perspectives and up-to-date research. In bringing together psychoanalytic theory, attachment theory, trauma theories, the arts and creativity, neuroscience and the body, a rich framework is created. From this, the individual integrative child psychotherapist can choose the interventions which best foster the emotional development of each unique child and their parents today.
Emotions are the common ground of child psychotherapy and a therapist's essential means of communication with children. Improved emotional resilience must be the shared therapeutic goal of all those who work with children and families. In Emotions in Child Psychotherapy, Kenneth Barish presents an integrative framework for child therapy, based on a contemporary understanding of the child's emotional experience. Barish begins with a concise review of recent advances in the psychology and neuroscience of emotions and an analysis of several emotions-interest, shame and pride, anxiety, anger, and sadness-that are essential, but often underappreciated, in therapeutic work with children. Offering an emotion-based perspective on optimal and pathological development in childhood, Barish argues that in pathological development, negative emotions have become malignant and children are locked in vicious cycles of interaction that perpetuate defiance and withdrawal. Based on these principles, Barish presents a comprehensive model for therapeutic work with children and families. He demonstrates how a systematic focus on the child's emotions provides new understandings of all phases of the therapeutic process and effective means of solving persistent clinical problems: how to engage more children in treatment, mitigate the child's resistance, and provide the kind of understanding to children that promotes openness, initiative, and pro-social character development. Finally, Barish offers a set of active therapeutic strategies that will help repair family relationships damaged by frequent anger and resentment, as well as specific techniques to help parents resolve many of the most common challenges of childrearing. Emotions in Child Psychotherapy includes extensive clinical illustrations and addresses many of the problems faced, at some time, by every child therapist. Both richly informative and highly practical, this book will be value to all students of child therapy and to practicing clinicians of differing theoretical orientations.
Contemporary psychodynamic theory profoundly impacts our understanding of the development of psychopathology in children and adolescents. This book creates new concepts derived from contemporary psychodynamic theory that necessitate a revision to the principles underlying our understanding of and approach to young patients in psychotherapy. Moreover, this book reviews recent contributions from contemporary two-person relational psychodynamic theory and makes use of detailed case examples to bring to life this theory’s practical applications in child and adolescent psychotherapy. Psychotherapists and students of psychotherapy will find this book a valuable source of information on contemporary psychodynamic theory and a useful resource for introducing a contemporary style into their practice, co-constructing with the patient a narrative to achieve the desired goals.
Psychodynamic Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy is both a textbook and book of reference for all child and adolescent psychotherapists. It addresses both novices, who need to learn the theories and methods of the work, and also experienced psychotherapists, who want to expand their knowledge, at the same time getting a readily-accessible update and revival of the many ways in which psychodynamic child and adolescent psychotherapy enters into contemporary practice. The book offers a clear, methodologically precise and updated introduction to the theories, methods and practice of the field. The authors demonstrate through practical examples what psychodynamic child and adolescent psychotherapy is, and how a psychotherapy can be planned and carried out, expounding the necessary preconditions, settings and methods. A personal understanding of the complexity of the therapeutic relationship is presented together with an elucidation of drawings and symbolic play, parallel work with parents, and the special conditions for work with adolescents. A special section deals with the meaning of time, beginnings, endings, and breaks in psychotherapy, followed by a part about the methodological adaptations necessary for psychotherapy with children and adolescents suffering from maltreatment and complex trauma. Psychodynamic Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy ends with a description of the present state of research in the field.
This third edition of Child Psychology continues the tradition of showcasing cutting-edge research in the field of developmental science, including individual differences, dynamic systems and processes, and contexts of development. While retaining a similar structure to the last edition, this revision consists of completely new content with updated programmatic research and contemporary research trends and interests. The first three sections highlight research that is organized chronologically by age: Infancy, Childhood, and Adolescence. Within each section, individual chapters address contemporary research on a specific area of development, such as learning, cognition, social, and emotional development at that period in childhood. The fourth section, Ecological Influences, emphasizes contextual influences relevant to children of all ages, including risk and protective processes, family and neighborhood context, race and ethnicity, peer relations, the effects of poverty, and the impact of the digital world. Child Psychology also features a unique focus on four progressive themes. First, emphasis is placed on theory and explanation—the "why and how" of the developmental process. Second, explanations of a transactional and multidimensional nature of development are at the forefront of all chapters. Third, the multi-faceted approach to development highlights contextual influences and cultural diversity among children from different communities and backgrounds. Finally, methodological innovation is a key concern, and research tools presented across chapters span the full array available to developmental scientists who focus on different systems and levels of analysis. The thoroughness and depth of this book, in addition to its methodological rigor, make it an ideal handbook for researchers, practitioners, policy makers, and advanced students across a range of disciplines, including psychology, education, economics and public policy.
This edited collection by David A. Crenshaw, with contributions from such notables as James Garbarino, Kenneth V. Hardy, and Andrew Fussner, addresses the multiple sources of wounding of children and teens in contemporary life. The book conveys a message of hope and optimism, even in work with children who might be viewed as 'impossible cases,' because the contributors share a passion for utilizing and building on the strengths of children and families. These authors go beyond treating psychiatric symptoms to address in a more comprehensive way the emotional suffering of youth. The unifying treatment framework for the book is relational therapy. The emotional injuries of children do not develop in a vacuum, but rather in a relational context, and healing must also be embedded in an empathic relationship between the child and the family. Building, repairing, and restoring connections within the family and the larger community, as well as within the therapeutic relationship, opens the door to growth, healing, and meaningful belonging. The stories of triumph over adversity by the courageous children and families in this book will inspire those who daily strive to make a meaningful difference in the lives of hurting youth to renew their commitment to this worthy mission.
In this book, a clinical scientist highlights youth psychotherapies that have been tested and shown to work. Treatments for fears and anxiety, depression, attention deficits and ADHD, and conduct problems and disorder are described in detail, their conceptual basis explained, their clinical application illustrated by richly developed case examples, and their prospects for use in clinical practice examined closely. This clinical perspective is complemented by summaries and critiques of the empirical evidence on each treatment and by commentaries on what questions remain unanswered. The author's clinical and scientific experience converge to produce a uniquely valuable experience on exemplary treatments for children and adolescents.
Child psychotherapy is in a state of transition. On the one hand, pretend play is a major tool of therapists who work with children. On the other, a mounting chorus of critics claims that play therapy lacks demonstrated treatment efficacy. These complaints are not invalid. Clinical research has only begun. Extensive studies by developmental researchers have, however, strongly supported the importance of play for children. Much knowledge is being accumulated about the ways in which play is involved in the development of cognitive, affective, and personality processes that are crucial for adaptive functioning. However, there has been a yawning gap between research findings and useful suggestions for practitioners. Play in Child Development and Psychotherapy represents the first effort to bridge the gap and place play therapy on a firmer empirical foundation. Sandra Russ applies sophisticated contemporary understanding of the role of play in child development to the work of mental health professionals who are trying to design intervention and prevention programs that can be empirically evaluated. Never losing sight of the complex problems that face child therapists, she integrates clinical and developmental research and theory into a comprehensive, up-to-date review of current approaches to conceptualizing play and to doing both therapeutic play work with children and the assessment that necessarily precedes and accompanies it.
