Rich with case material and artwork samples, this volume demonstrates a range of creative approaches for facilitating children's emotional reparation and recovery from trauma. Contributors include experienced practitioners of play, art, music, movement and drama therapies, bibliotherapy, and integrative therapies, who describe step-by-step strategies for working with individual children, families, and groups. The case-based format makes the book especially practical and user-friendly. Specific types of stressful experiences addressed include parental loss, child abuse, accidents, family violence, bullying, and mass trauma. Broader approaches to promoting resilience and preventing posttraumatic problems in children at risk are also presented.

A trusted, comprehensive resource, this volume demonstrates a range of creative approaches for facilitating children's emotional reparation and recovery from trauma. Experts in play, art, music, movement, and drama therapy, as well as bibliotherapy, describe step-by-step strategies for working with children, families, and groups. Rich with case material and artwork, the book is both practical and user-friendly. Specific types of stressful experiences discussed include parental loss, child abuse, family violence, bullying, and mass trauma. New to This Edition: *Updated and expanded discussions of trauma and of the neurobiological basis for creative interventions. *Chapters on art therapy and EMDR, body maps and dissociation, sandtray play, resiliency-based movement therapy, work with clay, mindfulness, and stress reduction with music therapy. *Highlights important developments in knowledge about self-regulation, resilience, and posttraumatic growth. This e-book edition features 65 full-color illustrations. (Illustrations will appear in black and white on black-and-white e-readers).

This book vividly shows how creative arts and play therapy can help children recover from experiences of disrupted or insecure attachment. Leading practitioners explore the impact of early relationship difficulties on children's emotions and behavior. Rich case material brings to life a range of therapeutic approaches that utilize art, music, movement, drama, creative writing, and play. The volume covers ways to address attachment issues with individuals of different ages, as well as their caregivers. Chapters clearly explain the various techniques and present applications for specific populations, including complex trauma survivors.

Featuring in-depth case presentations from master clinicians, this volume highlights the remarkable capacity of traumatized children to guide their own healing process. The book describes what posttraumatic play looks like and how it can foster resilience and coping. Demonstrated are applications of play, art, and other expressive therapies with children who have faced such overwhelming experiences as sexual abuse or chronic neglect. The contributors discuss ways to facilitate forms of expression that promote mastery and growth, as well as how to intervene when play becomes stuck in destructive patterns. They share effective strategies for engaging hard-to-reach children and building trusting therapeutic relationships.

Listening to a small child describe a parent's murder can tax the most seasoned professional. Cases of physical and sexual abuse where trauma was deliberately inflicted can particularly challenge a practitioner's defenses.Treating Traumatized Children is the first handbook to provide specific guidance and tools for treating children who have been traumatized by physical and sexual abuse, disaster, divorce, or witnessing violent events. This book will provide helping professionals with a clear blueprint for assessing the impact of trauma and developing specific treatment plans.Beverly James, a specialist in evaluating and treating traumatized children, outlines creative exercises and techniques that will enable clinicians to join with children in slowly and carefully reviewing their experiences and helping them understand and accept their feelings related to the trauma. Art, play, and drama techniques, among others, are presented in a sophisticated yet straightforward style, useful to clinicians with specialized training in such techniques or those using them for the first time.

"This volume provides a wonderful treasure-chest of appealing and practical aids to assist mental health practitioners in counseling bereaved school-age children. Numerous exercises and games are included that will encourage children to express their complicated feelings about the death of a loved one. Handouts for parents and teachers as well as guidelines for practitioners serve as important resources to assist adults in their efforts to help bereaved children." -- Nancy Boyd Webb. [from back cover].

This best-selling collection is filled with creative assessment and treatment interventions to help clients identify feelings, learn coping strategies, enhance social skills, and elevate self-esteem. A wealth of innovative tools for practitioners working with children in individual, group, and family counselling. Aimed at 4 to 16 year olds.

Communicating Trauma explores the various aspects of language and communication and how their development can be affected by childhood trauma and overwhelm. Multiple case-study vignettes describe how different kinds of childhood trauma can manifest in children's ability to relate, attend, learn, and communicate. These examples offer ways to understand, respond, and support children who are communicating overwhelm. In this book, psychotherapists, speech-language pathologists, social workers, educators, occupational and physical therapists, medical personnel, foster parents, adoption agencies, and other child professionals and caregivers will find information and practical direction for improving connection and behavior, reducing miscommunication, and giving a voice to those who are often our most challenging children.

"Psychological trauma can be a life-changing experience that affects multiple facets of health and well-being. The nature of trauma is to impact the mind and body in unpredictable and multidimensional ways. It can be a highly subjective that is difficult or even impossible to explain with words. It also can impact the body in highly individualized ways and result in complex symptoms that affect memory, social engagement, and quality of life. While many people overcome trauma with resilience and without long term effects, many do not. Trauma's impact often requires approaches that address the sensory-based experiences many survivors report. The expressive arts therapy-the purposeful application of art, music, dance/movement, dramatic enactment, creative writing and imaginative play-are largely non-verbal ways of self-expression of feelings and perceptions. More importantly, they are action-oriented and tap implicit, embodied experiences of trauma that can defy expression through verbal therapy or logic. Based on current evidence-based and emerging brain-body practices, there are eight key reasons for including expressive arts in trauma intervention, covered in this book: (1) letting the senses tell the story; (2) self-soothing mind and body; (3) engaging the body; (4) enhancing nonverbal communication; (5) recovering self-efficacy; (6) rescripting the trauma story; (7) making meaning; and (8) restoring aliveness"--

Therapists who work with children and adolescents are frequently faced with nonresponsive, reticent, or completely nonverbal clients. This volume brings together expert clinicians who explore why 4- to 16-year-olds may have difficulty talking and provide creative ways to facilitate communication. A variety of play, art, movement, and animal-assisted therapies, as well as trauma-focused therapy with adolescents, are illustrated with vivid clinical material. Contributors give particular attention to the neurobiological effects of trauma, how they manifest in the body when children "clam up," and how to help children self-regulate and feel safe. Most chapters conclude with succinct lists of recommended practices for engaging hard-to-reach children that therapists can immediately try out in their own work.