Contemporary Child Psychotherapy: Integration and Imagination in Creative Clinical Practice demonstrates the step-by-step process of developing the depth of understanding, creativity, knowledge and skill that underpin a modern integrative child psychotherapist. Portrayed is a flexible model that is fluid and evolving, bringing together traditional, long-held ideas with fresh perspectives and up-to-date research. In bringing together psychoanalytic theory, attachment theory, trauma theories, the arts and creativity, neuroscience and the body, a rich framework is created. From this, the individual integrative child psychotherapist can choose the interventions which best foster the emotional development of each unique child and their parents today.

Emotions are the common ground of child psychotherapy and a therapist's essential means of communication with children. Improved emotional resilience must be the shared therapeutic goal of all those who work with children and families.In Emotions in Child Psychotherapy, Kenneth Barish presents an integrative framework for child therapy, based on a contemporary understanding of the child's emotional experience. Barish begins with a concise review of recent advances in the psychology and neuroscience of emotions and an analysis of several emotions-interest, shame and pride, anxiety, anger, and sadness-that are essential, but often underappreciated, in therapeutic work with children. Offering an emotion-based perspective on optimal and pathological development in childhood, Barish argues that in pathological development, negative emotions have become malignant and children are locked in vicious cycles of interaction that perpetuate defiance and withdrawal. Based on these principles, Barish presents a comprehensive model for therapeutic work with children and families. He demonstrates how a systematic focus on the child's emotions provides new understandings of all phases of the therapeutic process and effective means of solving persistent clinical problems: how to engage more children in treatment, mitigate the child's resistance, and provide the kind of understanding to children that promotes openness, initiative, and pro-social character development. Finally, Barish offers a set of active therapeutic strategies that will help repair family relationships damaged by frequent anger and resentment, as well as specific techniques to help parents resolve many of the most common challenges of childrearing.Emotions in Child Psychotherapy includes extensive clinical illustrations and addresses many of the problems faced, at some time, by every child therapist. Both richly informative and highly practical, this book will be value to all students of child therapy and to practicing clinicians of differing theoretical orientations.

This highly practical book presents current developments in play therapy, including innovative applications for particular problems and populations. Contributors first discuss the latest ideas and techniques emerging from object relations, experiential, dynamic, and narrative perspectives. Next, research evaluating the effectiveness of play interventions is reviewed in detail. The book's third and largest section demonstrates creative approaches for helping children deal with a variety of adverse circumstances: homelessness, family problems, sexual abuse, social aggression, natural disasters, and more. Throughout, rich case illustrations enhance the book's utility for clinicians.

Contemporary psychodynamic theory profoundly impacts our understanding of the development of psychopathology in children and adolescents. This book creates new concepts derived from contemporary psychodynamic theory that necessitate a revision to the principles underlying our understanding of and approach to young patients in psychotherapy. Moreover, this book reviews recent contributions from contemporary two-person relational psychodynamic theory and makes use of detailed case examples to bring to life this theory’s practical applications in child and adolescent psychotherapy. Psychotherapists and students of psychotherapy will find this book a valuable source of information on contemporary psychodynamic theory and a useful resource for introducing a contemporary style into their practice, co-constructing with the patient a narrative to achieve the desired goals.

Psychodynamic Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy is both a textbook and book of reference for all child and adolescent psychotherapists. It addresses both novices, who need to learn the theories and methods of the work, and also experienced psychotherapists, who want to expand their knowledge, at the same time getting a readily-accessible update and revival of the many ways in which psychodynamic child and adolescent psychotherapy enters into contemporary practice. The book offers a clear, methodologically precise and updated introduction to the theories, methods and practice of the field. The authors demonstrate through practical examples what psychodynamic child and adolescent psychotherapy is, and how a psychotherapy can be planned and carried out, expounding the necessary preconditions, settings and methods. A personal understanding of the complexity of the therapeutic relationship is presented together with an elucidation of drawings and symbolic play, parallel work with parents, and the special conditions for work with adolescents. A special section deals with the meaning of time, beginnings, endings, and breaks in psychotherapy, followed by a part about the methodological adaptations necessary for psychotherapy with children and adolescents suffering from maltreatment and complex trauma. Psychodynamic Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy ends with a description of the present state of research in the field.

Developmental Perspectives in Child Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy incorporates recent innovations in developmental theory and research into our understanding of the nature of change in child psychotherapy. Diverse psychoanalytic ideas and individual styles are represented, challenging the historical allegiance in analytic child therapy to particular, and so often singular, schools of thought. Each of the distinguished contributors offers a conceptually grounded and clinically rich account of child development, addressing topics such as refl ective functioning, the role of play, dreaming, trauma and neglect, the development of recognition and mutuality, autism, adoption, and non- binary conceptions of gender. Extended clinical vignettes offer the reader clear vision into the convergence of theory and practice, demonstrating the potential of psychoanalytic psychotherapy to move child development forward. This book will appeal to all practicing mental health professionals.

This readable guide for therapists and therapists-in-training lays out the theoretical essence and practical essentials of doing child and adolescent psychotherapy from the referral call to the last goodbye.