Working with Children to Heal Interpersonal Trauma: The Power of Play

Abstract

Featuring case presentations from clinicians, this volume highlights the 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. Depicted are effective applications of play, art, and other expressive therapies with children who have faced such overwhelming experiences as sexual abuse, chronic neglect, or family violence. The contributors emphasize the importance of allowing children the time and space to access their inner resources for self-repair, rather than imposing set agendas on clinical sessions. Part I lays the conceptual groundwork, interweaving clinical examples with current knowledge on childhood trauma, attachment, and child therapy. Part II, the core of the volume, is devoted to the cases. Illustrating the uses of a wide range of play materials, these cases bring to life the typical features of posttraumatic play. They demonstrate ways to facilitate forms of expression that promote mastery and growth, as well as how to intervene when play becomes stuck in destructive patterns. Particular attention is given to strategies for engaging hard-to-reach children and building trusting therapeutic relationships. This book may serve as a supplemental text in clinically oriented graduate-level courses, or as a reference for child psychologists, social workers, play and art therapists, counselors, family therapists, and child psychiatrists. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)