This classic volume, now completely revised, has helped tens of thousands of therapists integrate play therapy and family therapy techniques in clinical practice. Eliana Gil demonstrates a broad range of verbal and nonverbal strategies for engaging all family members--including those who are ambivalent toward therapy--and tailoring interventions for different types of presenting problems. Numerous case examples illustrate ways to effectively use puppets, storytelling, art making, the family play genogram, drama, and other expressive techniques with children, adolescents, and their parents. Gil offers specific guidance for becoming a more flexible, creative practitioner and shows how recent advances in neuroscience support her approach. Photographs of client artwork are included. New to This Edition *Incorporates 20 years of clinical experience and the ongoing development of Gil's influential integrative approach. *All-new case material. *Discusses how current brain research can inform creative interventions. *Heightened focus on personal metaphors, complete with detailed suggestions for exploring and processing them.

Highly practical, instructive, and authoritative, this book vividly describes how to conduct child-centered play therapy. The authors are master clinicians who explain core therapeutic principles and techniques, using rich case material to illustrate treatment of a wide range of difficulties. The focus is on nondirective interventions that allow children to freely express their feelings and take the lead in solving their own problems. Flexible yet systematic guidelines are provided for setting up a playroom; structuring sessions; understanding and responding empathically to children's play themes, including how to handle challenging behaviors; and collaborating effectively with parents.

Attachment-Focused Family Play Therapy presents an essential roadmap for therapists working with traumatized youth. Exploring trauma and attachment through a neurobiological focus, the book lays out a flexible framework for practitioners treating young clients within the context of their family relationships. Chapters demonstrate how techniques of play and expressive therapy can be integrated into work with different developmental stages, while providing the tools needed to fully incorporate the family into the healing process. The book also provides clinical examples and guidance on the ethical decision-making needed to effectively implement attachment work and facilitate positive change. Written in an accessible style, Attachment-Focused Family Play Therapy is an important resource for mental health professionals who work with traumatized children, adolescents, and adults.

Bringing together an array of highly creative contributors, this comprehensive resource presents a unique collection of assessment and treatment techniques. Contributors illustrate how play, art, drama, and other approaches can effectively engage families and help them resolve complex problems. Practitioners from divergent theoretical orientations, work settings, or client specialisations will find a plethora of stimulating and useable clinical interventions in this book.

Incorporating mindfulness and family therapy into play-family sessions. When a child is offered a space to relax the “busy mind,” his experience is comparable to mindfulness meditation. Therapists can help children remain in this calm state—in the state of the present moment—if they have the right tools and techniques to do so. During this stillness, a child can reach a level of consciousness that is parallel to the deepened awareness that occurs during mindfulness meditation. Conducting play sessions in this stage allows for healing and progress. Not only can the symptoms of children’s pain be reduced in intensity and duration, but their self-esteem can be enhanced. This book presents a new and comprehensive framework for helping children through play therapy within the context of the family and incorporating ideas from the practice of mindfulness. This experience-based therapeutic model respectfully derives from the best roots of traditional family therapy and play therapy modalities. Additionally, it draws from child development theory, interpersonal neurobiology, and mindfulness. Either spontaneous play or directed play can be used according to the need.

Play therapy and family therapy both are well established therapeutic paradigms. Often, however, play therapists have minimal contact with the nuclear family of which their child patient is a member. Similarly, family therapists frequently view young children as disruptive and exclude them from family sessions. By combining both play and family treatment modalities as this unique book Family Play Therapy suggests, all family members can participate in a therapeutic process which, in its inclusion of everyone, is more genuine and therefore successful. Family Play Therapy encourages the blending of play therapy and family therapy by discussing and demonstrating various techniques and diverse theoretical approaches that will enable readers to broaden their repertoire when working with families and their young children. Each author describes his or her own creative avenue of expression such as puppetry, psychodrama, and sandplay, which facilitate the family's communication, helping members to find new ways to hear each other. Family play therapy and play therapy need not be exclusionary. The two approaches actually can enhance and enrich each other. While each therapist ultimately will use his or her own ideas in the critical combining of both methods, Family Play Therapy offers various possibilities and as such, helps therapists to help their family patients to be readily engaged in treatment and to experience therapy as a fun, inclusive, transforming time together.

The second edition of Play Therapy Techniques includes seven new chapters in addition to the original twenty-four. These lively chapters expand the comprehensive scope of the book by describing issues involved in beginning and ending therapy, using metaphors, playing music and ball, and applying the renowned "Color Your Life" technique. The extensive selection of play techniques described in this book will add to the clinical repertoire of students and practitioners of child therapy and counseling. When used in combination with formal education and clinical supervision, Play Therapy Techniques, Second Edition, can be especially useful for developing treatment plans to address the specific needs of various clinical populations. Students and practitioners of child therapy and counseling, including psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, nurses, and child life specialists will find this second of Play Therapy Techniques informative and clinically useful.