Here is a comprehensive guide to of the the most effective and dynamic childhood intervention available to counselors, therapists, teachers, psychologists, and anyone who works with kids. This hands-on resource applies play therapy theory to a wide variety of group settings and gives therapists insight into treating special populations including sibling groups, children who have been abused, and children who have experienced the loss of a loved one. Enter a child's world of communication with twenty-five of the country's leading play therapy experts as they guide you through a myriad of group play therapy approaches, issues, and techniques.The Handbook of Group Play Therapy gives therapists the tools they need to help children as they experience the exhilaration, fear,joy, and frustration in discovering the world around them as they learn about themselves and others.

Play Therapy Primary Areas:

• History
  
• Seminal / Historically Significant Theories
• Skills and Methods
• Special Topics
  

This home study program informs the learner through the latest research in neuroscience about the important role of play, play therapy, and relationships in children’s growth and healing.  Clear explanation is provided of the neurobiology behind play and play therapy, and case examples are used to illustrate concepts in meaningful ways.

Learning Objectives:

• Describe in basic terms how interpersonal neurobiology informs play therapy practice.
• Explain play and play therapy through neurobiological terms.
• Discuss how interpersonal neurobiology connects theory to practice.
• Articulate, through a neurobiological lens, the benefits of play and play therapy, to caregivers.

Play Therapy Primary Areas:

• Seminal / Historically Significant Theories
• Skills and Methods
• Special Topics
  

Revised and expanded, The Therapeutic Powers of Play, Second Edition explores the powerful effects that play therapy has on different areas within a child or adolescent's life: communication, emotion regulation, relationship enhancement, and personal strengths. Editors Charles Schaefer and Athena Drewes―renowned experts in the field of play therapy―discuss the different interventions and components of treatment that can move clients to change.

Play Therapy Primary Areas:

• History
  
• Seminal / Historically Significant Theories
• Skills and Methods
• Special Topics
  

This book addresses the issues that child and adolescent therapists struggle with the most―how to meaningfully engage and create conditions for transformative change with children and teens who are unwilling participants at the outset and who regard any allowed influence by the therapist to be a competitive defeat. To engage these particularly reluctant children, Dr. Crenshaw has expanded the variety of stories offered in a previous book Engaging Resistant Children in Therapy, and added not only drawing, but symbol work and play therapy variations to offers choices and a range of tools to involve them in a meaningful collaborative therapeutic process. The book begins with a review of research and a rationale for using tools consisting of symbolic play for younger children and the therapeutic use of symbols, drawing, and storytelling in order to create portals of entry to reach disconnected children. The book is organized in chapters along major therapeutic goals as follows with specific tools described to meet the objectives: the challenge of therapeutic engagement with reluctant children; relational strategies to engage heart and mind; the therapeutic use of symbols to access the internal and relational worlds of the child or teen; building the therapeutic alliance with strategies that honor strengths; strategies to strengthen the self-observer; facilitating empathy for self and others; strategies to access the pain of social rejection; tools to address grief and traumatic loss; the 'quest for home' strategies; and the delicate operation of facilitating hope. The strategies described were chosen and developed based on and informed by a vast developmental psychopathology.

Play Therapy Primary Areas:

• Skills and Methods
• Special Topics
  

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, counter transference, and much more.

Play Therapy Primary Areas:

• Seminal / Historically Significant Theories
• Skills and Methods
• Special Topics

Understanding and Treating the Aggression of Children: Fawns in Gorilla Suits provides a thorough review of the theoretical and research basis of the techniques and interventions in the treatment of aggressive and sometimes violent children. This is not a dry and sterile academic review but rather one that comes from work directly in the therapy room with thousands of hurting and in many cases traumatized children. One cannot read this book without being deeply moved and touched by the pain of these children and yet also be buoyed by their courage and willingness to persevere against formidable barriers. The metaphor of the fawn in a gorilla suit is introduced, followed by chapters covering developmental failures and invisible wounds, profound and unacknowledged losses, the implication of new findings from neuroscience, psychodynamics of aggressive children, risk factors when treating the traumatized child, special considerations when treating children in foster care, strengthening relationships with parents and helping them be more effective, enhancing relationships with direct care and instructional staff, developing mature defenses, and coping skills, creating a therapeutic milieu for traumatized children, and fostering hope and resilience.

Play Therapy Primary Areas:

• Seminal / Historically Significant Theories
• Skills and Methods
• Special Topics
  

Through rich and research-grounded clinical applications, Using Superheroes and Villains in Counseling and Play Therapy explores creative techniques for integrating superhero stories and metaphors in clinical work with children, adolescents, adults and families. Each chapter draws on the latest empirically supported approaches and techniques to address a wide range of clinical challenges in individual, family and group settings. The chapters also explore important contextual issues of race, gender, culture, age and ethnicity and provide case studies and practical tips that clinicians can use to support clients on their healing journey.

Play Therapy Primary Areas:

• Skills and Methods
• Special Topics
  

With an incisive historical foreword by John Shelton Lawrence and insight from contributors such as Michael Brody, Patty Scanlon, and Roger Kaufman, Lawrence Rubin takes us on a dynamic tour of the benefits of using these icons of popular culture and fantasy in counseling and play therapy. Not only can superheroes assist in clinical work with children, but Rubin demonstrates how they can facilitate growth and change with teen and adults. Early childhood memories of how we felt pretending to have the power to save the world or our families in the face of impending danger still resonate in our adult lives, making the use of superheroes attractive as well, to the creative counselor.

In presenting case studies and wisdom gleaned from practicing therapists' experience, Lawrence Rubin shows how it is possible to uncover children's secret identities, assist treatment of adolescents with sexual behavior problems, and inspire the journey of individuation for gay and lesbian clients, all by paying attention to our intrinsic social need for superhero fantasy and play.

• Skills and Methods
• Special Topics
  

When originally published, this book filled a void in child therapy literature. Counselors and therapists, in schools, mental health centers and private practice, embraced this book. It is the largest selling book on the subject in the world. This brand-new 2nd edition includes over 300 pages of methods, materials, and techniques for working with children and adolescents. Also included are session transcripts, case examples and discussions.

Play Therapy Primary Areas:

• History
• Seminal / Historically Significant Theories
• Skills and Methods

Can a book on child counseling have a lasting effect on the future of our culture? This bestseller, which draws its texts from children's writing - rather than adult writing for children - may do just that. Written Paths to Healing describes the use of journal writing and letters for leading children through their confusion. The authors focus on the themes of writing (dreams, fears, friendships, scapegoating, divorce, crises) and imagery as a writing method. Fairy tales, heroic journeys, and vision quests are vehicles for transition to young adulthood.

Play Therapy Primary Areas:

• Skills and Methods
• Special Topics