A comprehensive guide to the growing area of expressive techniques in therapy. Many clients and practitioners are searching for therapeutic techniques that go beyond traditional talk therapy to tap into the healing potentials found within the body, creative expression, and the spirit. These techniques include areas such as art, dance, yoga, music, drama, theatre and ritual.

Weaving practical, hands-on ideas with theory and research about child development, child treatment, and the therapeutic relationship, this book describes an innovative approach to treatment of children and adolescents who won't or can't respond to traditional, conversation-based therapy. For these children, therapists need an entirely new clinical language, one that doesn't depend on words. Within an interpersonal and developmental framework, Straus spells out the deceptively simple goals of no-talk therapy: someone to be close to, and something to be proud of. Through empathy and respect, games, activities, community involvement, a circle of adults, and little pleasures, this approach begins to provide these anxious, sullen, enraged, and confused kids with the self-confidence, self-esteem, and self-awareness to develop a voice of their own.

Solution-focused therapy is often misunderstood to be no more than the techniques it is famous for—pragmatic, future-oriented questions that encourage clients to reconceptualize their problems and build on their strengths. Yet when applied in a "one-size-fits-all" manner, these techniques may produce disappointing results and leave clinicians wondering where they have gone wrong. This volume adds a vital dimension to the SFT literature, providing a rich theoretical framework to facilitate nonformulaic clinical decision making. The focus is on how attention to emotional issues, traditionally not emphasized in brief, strengths-based interventions, can help "unstick" difficult situations and pave the way to successful solutions.

Using mindfulness-based techniques and cognitive behavioral tools, a leading expert on the use of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) teaches readers to transcend the experience of chronic pain by reconnecting with other, more valued aspects of their lives.

A hard-hitting critique of how managed care and the selective use of science to privilege quick-fix therapies have undermined in-depth psychotherapy—to the detriment of patients and practitioners In recent decades there has been a decline in the quality and availability of psychotherapy in America that has gone largely unnoticed—even though rates of anxiety, depression, and suicide are on the rise. In Saving Talk Therapy, master therapist Dr. Enrico Gnaulati presents powerful case studies from his practice to remind patients and therapists alike how and why traditional talk therapy works and, using cutting-edge research findings, unpacks the problematic incentives in our health-care system and in academic psychology that explain its decline. Beginning with a discussion of the historical development of talk therapy, Dr. Gnaulati goes on to dissect the factors that have undermined it. Psychotropic drugs, if no longer thought of as a magical cure, are still over-prescribed and shunt health-care dollars to drug corporations. Managed-care companies and mental health “carve outs” send health-care dollars to administrators, drive many practitioners away, and over-burden those who remain. And drawing back the curtains on CBT (cognitive behavior therapy), Dr. Gnaulati shows that while it might be effective in the research lab, its findings are of limited use for the people’s complex, real-world emotional problems. Saving Talk Therapy is a passionate and deeply researched case for in-depth, personally transformative psychotherapy that incorporates the benefits of an evidence-based approach and psychotropic drugs without over-relying on them.

FOR ALL THOSE SURVIVORS who wonder when they will finally feel good, the answer is now. One Small Step reminds us that living well is the best revenge and provides the knowledge and tools to fully embrace life. Organized into easy-to-follow sections, readers will find help in: * Moving Beyond Survivorhood * Enjoying the Gifts of the Present * Creating a Joyous Future * Responding to Life's Challenges * How to Start a Small Steps Support Group "The demands of fate can thwart one's journey. The exercises in One Small Step reclaim the ascendant path—the road to the real self. An internationally renowned expert, Yvonne Dolan provides a map to find the way home.”—Jeffrey K. Zeig, PhD, Director, The Milton H. Erickson Foundation “This book has a groundbreaking message: people can truly move beyond the identity of a ‘survivor’!”—Jill Freedman, MSW, coauthor of Narrative Therapy: The Social Construction of Preferred Realities “A manual for living and an absolute must for anyone who has survived the effects of trauma or loss and is ready to begin a rich and joyful life. Read it, reread it, and share it with a friend!”—Jim Duvall, Director, Brief Therapy Training Centres-InternationalTM A division of C.M. Hincks Institute) “Filled with helpful tips on how to reshape your future in spite of your past suffering.”—Insoo Kim Berg, coauthor of Interviewing for Solutions

NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2020 BY NPR, PEOPLE, AND O, THE OPRAH MAGAZINE A NEW YORK TIMES CRITICS’ TOP BOOK OF 2020 NATIONAL BESTSELLER “As good as The Friend, if not better.” —The New York Times “Impossible to put down . . . leavened with wit and tenderness.” —People “I was dazed by the novel’s grace.” —The New Yorker The New York Times–bestselling, National Book Award–winning author of The Friend brings her singular voice to a story about the meaning of life and death, and the value of companionship A woman describes a series of encounters she has with various people in the ordinary course of her life: an ex she runs into by chance at a public forum, an Airbnb owner unsure how to interact with her guests, a stranger who seeks help comforting his elderly mother, a friend of her youth now hospitalized with terminal cancer. In each of these people the woman finds a common need: the urge to talk about themselves and to have an audience to their experiences. The narrator orchestrates this chorus of voices for the most part as a passive listener, until one of them makes an extraordinary request, drawing her into an intense and transformative experience of her own. In What Are You Going Through, Nunez brings wisdom, humor, and insight to a novel about human connection and the changing nature of relationships in our times. A surprising story about empathy and the unusual ways one person can help another through hardship, her book offers a moving and provocative portrait of the way we live now.

"Few of the excellent models that have been developed for working with trauma survivors take into account the complexity of an individual's unique background and experience. Even treatment for members of "special groups" often ignores the individual's multilayered identities--which may include age, social class, ethnicity, religious faith, sexual orientation, and immigrant status--in favor of a "one-size-fits-all" approach. Drawing on her extensive clinical experience and the latest research, Laura Brown shows therapists how to become more sensitive to individual identity when working with clients who have suffered trauma. The author explains how culturally sensitive therapists draw upon multiple strategies for treating patients and are aware of both dominant group privilege and their own identity and culture. Of particular interest is a chapter on the role of systems of faith and meaning making in trauma therapy. The book has a practical focus and contains a variety of case studies illustrating how theoretical constructs can inform assessment and treatment. Given the ubiquity of trauma in its various forms, all therapists, from trainees to seasoned professionals, will find this volume educational and thought provoking"--Jacket. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2008 APA, all rights reserved).

Have you noticed that no matter how much time you spend in talk therapy, you still feel anxious and triggered? That is because talk therapy can keep you stuck in a pattern of reliving your stories, rather than moving beyond them. But, most of all, it's because trauma doesn't just reside inside your mind--much more importantly, it locks itself in other parts of your body. When left unresolved, that trauma continues to live there, impacting your life, your relationships, your sense of safety, and your ability to experience joy in very real ways. In Moving Beyond Trauma, Ilene Smith will introduce you to Somatic Experiencing, a body-based therapy capable of healing the damage done to your nervous system by trauma. She breaks down the ways in which trauma impacts your nervous system and walks you through a program designed to process trauma in a non-threatening way. You will discover a healing lifestyle marked by a deeper connection with yourself, those around you, and with everything you do.

First Published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.