Written by two authors with a combined experience of more than fifty years in the residential treatment of severely aggressive-and often traumatized-children, this book has proven invaluable to new as well as seasoned child practitioners. The chapters cover the nuts and bolts of play therapy with this extremely challenging clinical population, including the therapeutic alliance, aims of play therapy with aggressive children, setting limits on destructive and obtrusive behaviors, typical play themes of aggressive children, and developing distancing and displacement through playful action and through teaching, modeling, and structuring action play. Other chapters cover such topics as: how to create more mature defenses and calming strategies; the role of interpretation; the use of spontaneous drawings as a bridge to fantasy play; specific drawing techniques to create access to the inner world of children; how to teach and model pro-social skills and the language of feeling; and how to facilitate affect expression and modulation, contained reenactment of trauma, and children's ability to mourn tangible as well as intangible, unacknowledged and invisible losses. Later chapters cover the therapeutic process and techniques to facilitate termination. The authors introduce the Play Therapy Decision Grid, which is intended to guide the therapist into the levels of therapy best suited for the child at any given point based on the child's resources and the anxiety engendered by the therapy.

A Handbook of Play Therapy with Aggressive Children

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Crenshaw, David A.

Mordock, John B.

Mental Health

Jason Aronson, Inc.

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.

Understanding and Treating the Aggression of Children: Fawns in Gorilla Suits

Psychology & Counseling

Informed by an amalgamation of psychoanalytic and attachment theories, the techniques offered in this book can be employed alongside a variety of therapeutic modalities, such as evidenced-based cognitive-behavioral treatment; social learning, family systems, emotion-focused, Ericksonian, and solution-focused approaches; gestalt, psychodynamic, and narrative therapies; as well as play therapy and the therapies of the creative arts. 'Evocative strategies' have been developed for the purpose of engaging children in an emotionally meaningful process. Crenshaw illustrates that in order to create moments of transformation and change in and through the therapy process, we have to learn the language of the heart―where children in their essence live.

Evocative Strategies in Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy

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.

Therapeutic Engagement of Children and Adolescents: Play, Symbol, Drawing, & Storytelling Strategies

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.

Therapeutic Engagement of Children and Adolescents: Play, Symbol, Drawing, and Storytelling Strategies

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.

Jason Aronson

Crenshaw offers new child therapy techniques that are informed by an integration of psychoanalytic and attachment theories and can be integrated into a variety of therapy methods.

Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy: Wounded Spirits and Healing Paths

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.

Bereavement: Counseling the Grieving Throughout the Life Cycle (Continuum Counseling Series)

Offers advice on helping preschool and school age children, adolescents, adults, and the elderly deal with grief

Parenting & Relationships

Crossroad

Self-Help

Death & Grief

Continuum Intl Pub Group

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Crenshaw, David A.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Crenshaw, David A.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Crenshaw, David A.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

A Handbook of Play Therapy with Aggressive Children

Understanding and Treating the Aggression of Children: Fawns in Gorilla Suits

Evocative Strategies in Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy

Understanding and Treating the Aggression of Children: Fawns in Gorilla Suits

Therapeutic Engagement of Children and Adolescents: Play, Symbol, Drawing, and Storytelling Strategies

Therapeutic Engagement of Children and Adolescents: Play, Symbol, Drawing, & Storytelling Strategies

Evocative Strategies in Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy

Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy: Wounded Spirits and Healing Paths

Bereavement: Counseling the Grieving Throughout the Life Cycle (Continuum Counseling Series)

Bereavement: Counseling the Grieving Throughout the Life Cycle (Continuum Counseling Series)